TromboneChat

So it seems to me its not confusion its merely down to where you live (or at least what country you or the family transferred from) we all have a different interpretation. The British one is correct of course!!!

Doug

My tenorhorn is a Boosey & Son and my baritone, euphonium and E-flat tuba are Boosey & Hawkes so I'm sticking to the British brass band definitions.

In the windorchestra sometimes the part is called "bariton". I always assume I should use my euphonium, but would it be appropriate to choose a baritone instead or would that expose myself for trouble?
I have never done this because I've always been asked to bring my euphonium. I can not recall I've come across a bariton-player in a windorchestra.

/Tom

Generally, wind band parts are to be played on euphonium, even if the part is labeled as "baritone."

The exception to this rule is when there are separate and unique "baritone" and "euphonium" parts, ala Lincolnshire Posy.

DougHulme wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:50 am So it seems to me its not confusion its merely down to where you live (or at least what country you or the family transferred from) we all have a different interpretation. The British one is correct of course!!!

The confusion is that we Americans are in transition between one nomenclature and another. Most of the public knows the instrument as "baritone." Most of the players would argue that this is incorrect, when it really isn't -- it's just the older word which happens to be the same word that the British use to refer to a different instrument. A good percentage of the wind band repertoire says "baritone" at the top of the parts when clearly it is intended for euphonium.

Baritone can mean baritone in the British sense, but it can also mean euphonium. This is most often applied to the smaller American-style euphoniums (conn, king, olds -- front-action valves, smaller bore than the british-style euphonium, sometimes front bell) most often seen from about 1920 to about 1980, and still sometimes seen in community bands and marching bands; however it's not incorrect to look at a modern Besson/Willson/etc. and say that it's a "baritone."

JasonDonnelly wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 11:29 pm Generally, wind band parts are to be played on euphonium, even if the part is labeled as "baritone."

The exception to this rule is when there are separate and unique "baritone" and "euphonium" parts, ala Lincolnshire Posy.

Make that modern wind band parts and I'm in complete agreement. But for older American works (say, up through the early post-WWII period), any parts written with a specific instrument in mind (and let's be honest - that wasn't always the case) were written for the American baritone/euphonium.

Over the last 10-15 years, the American-style instrument has almost vanished, at least in my part of the world. I don't see them in community bands or school bands much any more; heck, I don't even see that many at TubaChristmas®. They're being (pretty much have been) replaced by China-built compensating euphoniums. Not sure if that's the case in the rest of the USA, but that's certainly what seems to happening in the Los Angeles area.

If you go back to the early 20th century, Conn, at least, made a distinction between "baritone" and "euphonium" that went beyond the "three valve/four valve" idea. Their baritones were smaller than their euphoniums, at least through the bell section (I've never had a chance to do comparative measurements of the valve sections), but still much larger than the contemporary tenor horns. There were four-valve baritones, as well as four- and five-valve double-bell baritones.

JohnL you're absolutely right but my point is that the American-style baritone is still a euphonium, just a different style instrument. In the same way that a Besson euphonium and a Cerveny or Alexander ovalform rotary baryton are two different styles of the same instrument.

I'm a period instrument person but I'm not sure I'd run out to get a Conn 24i because someone programmed "Symphonic Songs for Band!"

You point out that american makers in the early 20th century had different nomenclatures they used, but this may have been more for marketing reasons than for organological reasons. To wit, if you look at Conn catalogs from the 1890s they seem to swap back and forth in their descriptions from year to year of what they call the very same pattern instruments.