Miners, Music, Machines

Not long ago, I went with San Francisco Opera French horn player Bill Klingelhoffer to A and G Music in Oakland--specifically to its vast downstairs repair shop, Best Instrument Repair Co. That's where I met Dick Akright, "a giant in the field of horn-crafting repair," according to a long article former San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ken Garcia wrote about Akright and his realm several years ago. At one point, Akright had a side business with trumpet player Doc Severinsen--that's right, the guy who led the Tonight Show band when Johnny Carson was the late-night king. Dick and Doc created custom Bel Canto trumpets.

Bill and I were there to pick up the orchestra's two Wagner tubas (see previous post). Not every score calls for a Wagner tuba, so while Bill and the SFO orchestra were performing Aida, Werther, and The Marriage of Figaro lately--with Bill on co-principal horn, as usual--the Wagner tubas were getting the spa treatment in Oakland.

Lucky for me, only one of them was ready, because I got a great before-and-after view. One looked shiny and new. The other...you know how copper turns green when exposed to the elements? Brass turns orange with use, and the beautifully tarnished Wagner tuba that Ian Siverly showed us was solid tangerine around the valves and halfway down, trailing off into a scatter of paler fingerprints near the bell.

Siverly and his colleagues push something like a small metal balloon into the bell if they need to press out any dents, and use a soldering torch to fix broken braces. The cool thing, though, was seeing how these guys get the tarnish off instruments made of brass or a nickel-silver alloy: with an ultrasonic bath and a scratch brush. The bath entails filling a waist-high, rectangular metal sink with a gallon of biodetergent-acid concentrate and 90 gallons of water, then pulsing sonic waves through for a minute or two, max. "You could climb in there and get rid of all your gallstones," the deadpan Siverly said while showing us how it worked.

If the sonic bath is a kind of Jacuzzi, the scratch brush is the massage. It's a special mass of fine brass wire on the end of a long metal rod set in concrete; when you turn on a motor, the brush spins and buffs the brass instrument.

As I write this, the last miner has just emerged from that half-mile-deep pit in the Chilean earth. It's been amazing to see the technology developed to save these 33 men, especially that skinny steel pod and the pulleys used to lower it and haul the men up into sun- or moonlight. It's been so heartening to see how hard so many people have worked to save them. The human mind is shockingly adept at thinking up ways to inflict torture and death. But it can also create such beautiful, soul-healing art and such ingenious machines. Right this moment, I'm thinking of Wagner's operas, the unique musical instrument he envisioned, and the creative techniques someone invented to clean it. Not to mention an awe-inspiring rescue capsule that may--we hope--never be used again.

Background music: From Das Rheingold, Entry of the Gods Into Valhalla

The Music Goes Round and Round

It seems a little oxymoronic, putting Richard Wagner's name in front of a brass instrument associated with marching bands and Octoberfest. But as the people at wagner-tuba.com will tell you, the name of "one of the least well-known orchestral instruments in the world today" is "colourful yet ambiguous and causes confusion as to its true identify." In his operas, Wagner wanted to hear something bridging the tone between a French horn and a trombone, a smaller tuba that would integrate with the new (1835) bass tuba and better blend the sounds of the brass section.

When I tell you the Wagner tuba uses a French horn mouthpiece, you may--if you've been reading this blog and have a good memory--think of Bill Klingelhoffer, the San Francisco Opera's co-principal horn player (see August 3 post), who's the reason I'm writing this.

When a company performs the four operas in the Ring Cycle over the course of seven days, as SFO is doing next summer, the demands on the musicians seem almost unbelievable--especially when you multiply it times two more weeks. So you can imagine my lack of surprise when Bill told me that when he performed the Ring here before, the principal horn players divided the work. Bill played Das Rheingold, the other principal played Die Walkure, and they split up Siegfried and Gotterdammerung.

These days, though, Bill's co-principal is 20-something Kevin Rivard, who's so excited about playing his first Ring, says Bill, he wants to do the whole thing, with only an assistant to help out by...well, that's something I plan to talk to Kevin about. What will Bill be doing? Yep, he'll be on Wagner tuba.

So I guess you've figured out what's in the photographs. In the big one, you're looking at the intricate valve section with its seven tuning slides, each needing a separate adjustment. You have to take the whole thing apart to overhaul and clean it, and each tuning slide needs to be labeled first. The orchestra's two Wagner tubas have been getting spiffed up lately at A and G Music/Best Instrument Repair Co., "which, from its popularity over the years," the SF Chronicle noted a few years ago, "apparently lives up to its name." When Bill drove over there to pick them up, I went with him, and it was an unexpected glimpse behind the scenes.

Background music: Das Rheingold, Prelude-Act I