by Douglas Yeo (September 10, 2026)
The first Concerto for Tuba and Piano by A. Lebedev is one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire for tuba and bass trombone players. I have performed it on many occasions, in recitals in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and I recorded it on my compact disc recording, Two of a Mind (link to Hickeys Music Center). Despite its popularity, Lebedev’s concerto raises a lot of questions, especially for bass trombone players.
Recently, my friend Brad Edwards—Professor of Trombone at Arizona State University—asked me some of those questions. With Brad’s questions fresh in my mind, I think this is a good time to do something I’ve thought about doing for many years—put together some of what I’ve learned about Lebedev’s concerto. Maybe what you read here will help answer some of your questions about the piece.
WHO WAS LEBEDEV?
First, we should straighten out the man’s name. In various publications and biographies, I have seen his name given as A. Lebedev, Alexej Lebedjew, Alexei Lebedev, and Alexey Konstantinovich Lebedev. The last one is a full, correct, English transliteration of his Russian name, and it is the way his name is spelled on the website of the Moscow Conservatory. That said, friends of mine who are native Russian speakers and readers have told me that Alexei is equally acceptable. “Lebedjew” has appeared on German editions of the concerto but that that’s a uniquely German rendering.
Alexey Lebedev (1924–1993) was a Russian tuba teacher, performer, and composer. A full biography of Lebedev appears on the website of the Moscow Conservatory (in Russian). In 2001, when I went looking for biographical information about Lebedev, the Conservatory had an English version of Lebedev’s biography but, unfortunately, that does not seem to be available today, and it was different than the version that appears in Russian on the Conservatory’s website today. Here is a printout (below) I made of the Conservatory’s English biography of Lebedev as it appeared on its website in 2001 (if you try the URL at the bottom of the bio’s page, you will see the link is broken today):
Biography of Alexey Lebedev as it appeared on the Moscow Conservatory website, December 5, 2001.
In 1998, the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association, or T.U.B.A. (in 2000, the Association was renamed the International Tuba Euphonium Association, or ITEA) posthumously awarded Alexey Lebedev its prestigious lifetime achievement award. At that time, the T.U.B.A. Journal published a short article about him with some biographical information (ITEA Journal 26, no. 1, Fall 1998, 22), “T.U.B.A. Gives Lifetime Achievement Award to Lebedev.” Since then, the ITEA has published several other tributes to Lebedev, including “Alexei K. Lebedev: Tubist, Pedagogue, and Composer” (September 1, 2022), and “Alexei Konstantinovich Lebedev’s 100th Birthday Celebration“ (January 8, 2025). None of these articles have an author attribution. These articles are available to ITEA members and membership in ITEA is required for access. Join ITEA now for immediate access to these resources.
THE FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION (1950)
Among Lebedev’s many compositions are two tuba concertos and a Concert Allegro for tuba. They are among the most popular and frequently performed works ever written for tuba, and bass trombonists—who have always looked for excellent repertoire composed for other instruments that might lend themselves well to performance on bass trombone—also play them. It is one particular adaptation of Lebedev’s first Concerto for Tuba and Piano that has caused a great deal of confusion for bass trombonists, and that edition, by Allen Ostrander, is the primary focus of this discussion.
Lebedev composed his Concerto for Tuba and Piano in 1947 when he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. It was first published in 1950 by the Soviet Union’s State Music Publishing House (Moscow and Leningrad, catalog 21014). It was only after the publication of Lebedev’s second tuba concerto that the first concerto was renamed Concerto No. 1, although that was not the only name the concerto has been known by, as discussed below. The 1950 first edition does not have measure numbers or rehearsal letters, and tempo markings are in both Italian and Russian, as seen on the first page of the piano score, below:
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Title page and first page of Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba and Piano (Moscow and Leningrad, 1950)
THE SECOND PUBLISHED EDITION (1954)
In 1954, the concerto was republished by Friedrich Hofmeister of Leipzig (catalog 30219) which, at the time, was in what was known as East Germany. In this edition measure numbers are given, Lebedev’s name is given a German transliteration (Lebedjew), and the Russian tempo markings have been removed:
• • •
Title page and first page of Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba and Piano (Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1954).
THE 1995 EDITION
Hofmeister issued a new engraving of the concerto in 1995 (catalog FH 2317), two years after Lebedev’s death. This publication states that this edition is “revidierte Fassung 1980” (revised version 1980) and it is therefore reasonable—but not certain—to assume that Lebedev approved the several changes that appear therein. In this publication, the title was changed to Konzert Nr. 1 für Tuba/Baßposaune und Orchester (Concerto No. 1 for Tuba or Bass Trombone and Orchestra). A new, four-measure introduction was added (based on the concerto’s second theme), and measure numbers and the years of Lebedev’s birth and death were also included.
Title page and first page of Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto No. 1 for Tuba/Bass Trombone and Piano (Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1995).
The 1995 edition also includes a significant change in the piano accompaniment in measure 30 of this edition compared to the parallel place, measure 26, in the 1950 and 1954 editions. Look at and compare these measures:
Alexey Lebedev Concerto for Tuba (1950), measures 24–27.
Alexey Lebedev Concerto No. 1 for Tuba/Bass Trombone (1995), measures 27–29).
THE ORCHESTRA ACCOMPANIMENT (1999)
In 1999, Hofmeister issued an orchestra accompaniment for Concerto No. 1 (FH 8234). It is faithful in all musical respects to the 1995 edition, which was, again, positioned as “revised version 1980.” No arranger of this orchestra accompaniment is listed. Did Lebedev himself create this accompaniment? We don’t know. This orchestra accompaniment is available for rental on the Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag website. and the full score is available for purchase (the link is to Hickeys Music Center).
First page of the orchestra accompaniment for Alexey Lebedev Konzert No. 1 for Tuba/Bass Trombone and Orchestra(Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1999).
ALLEN E. OSTRANDER AND THE LEBEDEV “CONCERTO IN ONE MOVEMENT”
In 1960, Edition Musicus (New York) published the Lebedev Concerto for Tuba in an edition by Allen E. Ostrander. Ostrander’s edition was the first publication of the concerto outside the Soviet bloc and it quickly became its most frequently performed version. Among many changes Ostrander made (discussed below), is this: he changed the title of the concerto to Concerto in One Movement.
First page of A. Lebedev Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musucus, 1960).
Allen Ostrander (1909–1994) graduated from Ithaca College (then the Ithaca Conservatory of Music) with a B.S. in instrumental music education in 1932. He subsequently was a member of the National Orchestral Association in New York City and joined the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington D.C.) as its bass trombonist in 1935. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony for one season (1937–1938), a member of the NBC Symphony from 1938–1946 (he served in the U.S. Army from 1942–1945), and then was bass trombonist of the New York Philharmonic from 1946–1975. Ostrander then joined the faculty at his alma mater, Ithaca College, where he served as its trombone professor for a short time.
I knew Allen Ostrander. I grew up in Queens and Valley Stream, New York (I lived there from 1955–1971), and heard many concerts by the New York Philharmonic during those years. In 1972, after my family moved to New Jersey, I had several lessons with Ostrander in a music store in Teaneck, New Jersey where he taught private lessons. In the early 1990s, I had some correspondence with Ostrander. I was interested in acquiring a number of his trombone ensemble publications that had gone out of print. I asked if he had plans to re-issue them again. Unfortunately, I received an angry letter from him in which he complained bitterly about the “pirates” who had cheated him by photocopying much of his music and depriving him of royalties, and that he would not publish anything again. He had done so much for the bass trombone; the several versions of his bass trombone method book were very important to the evolution of bass trombone pedagogy in the mid 20th-century. His bitterness was a sad coda to a very influential life.
[An aside: For some insight into Ostrander’s early bass trombone method and its place in modern bass trombone pedagogy, see Jeanette Velasco, “A Comparative Analysis of Bass Trombone Method Books,” DMA document, Texas Christian University, 2025.]
I had heard that Ostrander discovered a copy of the Lebedev Concerto for Tuba in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. However, while working on his Doctor of Musical Arts monograph, “The Life and Work of the Orchestral Bass Trombonist, Allen Ostrander, and the Development of His Bass Trombone Methods and Solos” (Louisiana State University, 1992), Ronald G. Smith interviewed Ostrander about many subjects. Citing a letter he received from Ostrander dated January 13, 1985 and his interview with Ostrander (conducted between January 13–16, 1990), Smith wrote:
Another solo which Ostrander edited for bass trombone was a piece originally written for tuba, Concerto in One Movement by A. Lebedev, also published by Edition Musicus in 1960. He purchased from a music store a copy of the Russian edition for the tuba several years before the United States publication. (Smith, 136)
This telling of the Concerto in One Movement’s origin story is not wholly accurate. Ostrander could not have purchased a piece by A. Lebedev titled Concerto in One Movement because Lebedev himself never used that title. That title was Ostrander’s creation. However, it is entirely plausible that Ostrander purchased a copy of a Russian edition of the concerto in a music store. He would have been in New York City at the time and there were certainly several music stores that might have stocked some publications from the USSR. Ostrander’s account of how he first obtained a copy of the Concerto for Tuba puts to rest the Library of Congress story.
Ostrander subsequently edited the concerto and it was published by Edition Musicus in 1960. At that time, the Soviet Union did not recognize or respect international copyright conventions. The Universal Copyright Convention had been signed by most countries in 1952 but the Soviet Union did not sign it until 1973. Before 1973, publishing companies in both the East and West published—a less polite word would be “stole”—music that was under copyright in one country but that copyright was not respected in another. Subsequently, many USA publishing companies published dozens and dozens of works without paying royalties to composers from the Soviet bloc. Pirates. And the Soviets did the same thing with music by American and European composers. Pirates. Did Edition Musicus pay royalties to Lebedev for Concerto in One Movement? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the payment ledgers. But we do know that Edition Musicus put a copyright notice on the Concerto In One Movement. That was not legal; Ostrander did not “materially change” Lebedev’s concerto enough to qualify for it to appear under copyright. Edition Musicus could have published Ostrander’s edition under license from the USSR’s State Music Publishing House but it did not. Instead, it published the concerto in the wild west of the Cold War’s murky copyright reality.
There is another important aspect to Ostrander’s edition: its printing is identical to that of the 1950 Soviet editions. It as if Edition Musicus used the same engraving plate for Ostrander’s version that had been used when the concerto was first published. Ostrander made some editorial changes to the piece (discussed below) but with two notable exceptions, the actual printing of the music in Ostrander’s edition is the same as the first published edition.
OSTRANDER’S CHANGES TO LEBEDEV’S CONCERTO FOR TUBA
In his interview with Allen Ostrander, Ronald Smith discussed Ostrander’s arrangement of Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba:
After playing it [Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba] and deciding that he [Ostrander] liked it, he made a few changes in the music to fit the bass trombone. He felt that the notes were fine as they were for bass trombone, so he simply added some style markings, breath marks, and suggestions for using the valve. (Smith, 136)
Let’s look at the changes that Allen Ostrander made to Lebedev’s concerto.
In addition to changing the concerto’s title to Concerto in One Movement, Ostrander added 30 breath marks. Lebedev had no breath marks in his original. To the opening phrase (measures 1–14) of the concerto, below, Ostrander added six breath marks, far more, in my opinion, than the musical idea supports (by comparison, I take 3 breaths in the same phrase):
Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 1–20.
Ostrander also added two suggested slide positions in measure 9, and he bracketed Lebedev’s trill marking in measure 13 for tuba alone, not for bass trombone. [Bass trombonists, you can actually make this trill work really well if you play the B-natural in seventh position and then use the first valve—the F-attachment—for the C, also in seventh position. With a little practice, you can make this trill work nicely.]
Now, have a look at measure 17, above. Ostrander added a rit. (ritardando) on the third beat; he did the same thing in measure 58, below. Lebedev did not indicate a rit. in either of those instances. But this is an old trick for players: slow down the difficult parts.
Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 52–59.
Throughout Ostrander’s edition, he continued adding breath marks, making a few slide position suggestions (usually limited to suggesting that an individual play B-flat2 in third position using the F-attachment), marking the return of the trill in the recapitulation as for tuba only, and marking the pedal E1 as optional for bass trombone. All of these relatively minor editorial choices made sense to him and they can make sense to today’s players. However, Ostrander did make some radical changes to Lebedev’s concerto that dramatically changed the character and demands of the piece.
In measure 18–20, Lebedev dramatically interrupted the motion and contour of the melodic line by writing seven quarter and half notes for bass trombone and piano—in unison. This line is downward from its beginning at the second note of measure 18 (D-flat3) to its conclusion on the pedal E-flat1 (which both Lebedev and Ostrander marked as optional; a player can play the note an octave higher, an E-flat2). Here is what Lebedev wrote:
Alexey Lebedev Concerto for Tuba (1950), measures 17–21
Ostrander, on the other hand, changed the low C-flat1 to a pedal A-flat1 :
Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 17–21
As a result, Ostrander changed a descending line to a descending and then ascending line. When we look carefully at Ostrander’s edition, we can see that Edition Musicus did a crude “cut-and-paste job” to change the A-flat to a C-flat. The staff lines are not exactly lined up, and the flat symbol for the A-flat in the pianist’s right hand is slightly cut off. It’s not very elegant, but the intent is clear.
Ostrander made another significant change in measures 50, 51, and 52. In Lebedev’s own publications of the concerto, he wrote triplets on the first and third beats in each measure (only the first beat in measure 52):
Alexey Lebedev Concerto for Tuba (1950), measures 49–53
Ostrander changed the triplets to two sixteenth notes. Once more, like he did by adding rit. in several technical passages, Ostrander changed a difficult part to make it easier to play:
Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 49–53
These changes—changing the pitch of a note and changing the rhythm of several notes—are not small things. While Allen Ostrander is no longer with us and we cannot ask him to explain or defend his decisions, bass trombonists have asked this question over and over again, “Why did Ostrander make those changes?” We have some clues.
WHY DID OSTRANDER MAKE THOSE CHANGES?
Ronald Smith’s interview with Allen Ostrander addressed the changed C-flat:
He did change one note, a low C-flat to a pedal A-flat in the twentieth measure. Also, the accompaniment was changed in that particular measure because it played in octaves with the solo. (Smith, 136–137)
Ostrander did not, however, explain WHY he changed the note. But he alluded to “the low C-flat/B-natural problem”:
A low B was left in the last measure because Ostrander thought the bass trombonist had time to pull the valve tuning slide so it could be played in tune. (Smith, 137)
This sentence needs some unpacking and a little historical context.
Today’s double-valve bass trombone was born in 1938 when F. E. Olds Company of Fullerton, California, added a second valve to a single-valve bass trombone, thereby creating an instrument in B-flat (using no valves), F (using first valve alone), and E (using first and second valve together). This was a “dependent valve” bass trombone—the second valve had no impact on the pitch because it was dependent on the first valve being activated. This was the first double-valve bass trombone that was able to play a low B-natural 1 with the hand slide fully extended while using two valves.
F and E bass model (later named Super B-flat/F/E model, and still later, Model S-23) by F. E. Olds and Son, c. 1940. Collection of Jon Moyer; photo by Jon Moyer.
Olds was a niche market company on the West coast of the United States. As such, it was far from the large populations in the East and Midwest where most major orchestras in the country were found, such as Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. The Olds double-valve bass trombone was not widely adopted at the time of its invention; most bass trombonists of the first six decades of the twentieth century continued to use a single-valve bass trombone with an F-attachment.
With a single-valve bass trombone with an F-attachment, the lowest possible note with the hand slide fully extended (before playing pedal tones) is a low C2. It is not possible to play the low B-natural1 on a single valve bass trombone; the instruments’ tubing simply isn’t long enough. However, many manufacturers made their F-attachment tuning slide very long. By pulling the F-attachment tuning slide out, the F-attachment became an E-attachment (E2 played in first position when activating the valve) and—voilá!—the low B-natural could be played with the hand slide fully extended.
So, the B-natural WAS available on a single valve bass trombone, but you needed time to pull the F-attachment slide out, and then you needed to remember a new set of positions for any notes on the former F-attachment which was now an E-attachment. It worked, but it was cumbersome.
Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 98–120
Lebedev wrote a low B-natural1 in the last measure (measure 120) of his concerto (above). Ostrander evidently felt that because a bass trombonist could pull out the F-attachment slide to make it an E-attachment and therefore play the low B-natural1, he would leave the note in, and not change it to something else like he did earlier in the piece. But just where would the player pull out his F-attachment tuning slide? Way back in the four-measure rest that began in measure 100. That would make for many notes played on the E-valve, and it would have been a bit of a brain twister for most bass trombonists to remember the new slide positions. But it could be done.
But we have to ask ourselves: Why was Allen Ostrander assuming that players would be using a single-valve bass trombone with an F-attachment? After all, with a double-valve bass trombone of any configuration (dependent or in-line), the low-B natural is quite easy to produce without any slide pulling gymnastics.
We learn the answer by understanding the development of the double-valve bass trombone. When Olds developed and began marketing their double-valve dependent model bass trombone in 1938, most players didn’t notice. Meanwhile, on the east coast, bass trombonists Kauko Kahila (Boston Symphony Orchestra 1952–1972), Allen Ostrander (New York Philharmonic, 1946–1975), and Louis Counihan (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, 1944–1968) began working with the Roth-Reynolds Company (Cleveland, Ohio) to develop a dependent double-valve bass trombone in B-flat/F/E. That instrument, the Roth–Reynolds Stereophonic Contempora model 78-X (and model 72-X) was introduced in 1958. Here is an advertisement from 1959 that features Allen Ostrander endorsing his double-valve Roth–Reynolds bass trombone:
Roth–Reynolds trombone advertisement featuring Allen Ostrander, 1958. Courtesy of ElShaddai Edwards.
In 1960, when Ostrander published his edition of Lebedev’s concerto, the double-valve bass trombone was new, notwithstanding Olds’ mostly overlooked contribution over twenty years earlier. Most bass trombonists did not adopt Reynolds’ double-valve model right away; it wasn’t until the late 1960s that bass trombonists widely began embracing the double-valve bass trombone. In fact, Ostrander himself didn’t immediately use his Roth–Reynolds double-valve bass trombone much. In 1960, Ostrander, Kahila, and Counihan were featured in advertisement for Reynolds bass trombones, but this time, it was the Roth–Reynolds Contempora Philharmonic Model bass trombone—a SINGLE-VALVE bass trombone—they were endorsing. Even the players who worked with Roth–Reynolds to develop their double-valve bass trombone did not embrace it wholly in its early years.
Roth–Reynolds bass trombone advertisement featuring Kauko Kahila, Louis Counihan, and Allen Ostrander, 1960. Courtesy of ElShaddai Edwards.
Given that most bass trombonists in 1960 had probably never heard or, or seen, or much less played a double-valve bass trombone, Ostrander probably felt that changing the low C-flat1 in measure 18 of Lebedev’s concert was a very practical concession. If he had left that low C-flat 1 in the part, most bass trombonists of the era would have either taken the note up an octave (not, in my opinion, a viable option musically), or lipped a low C-2 with the hand slide fully extended down to pitch as a C-flat1 (another questionable decision). Hence, the note was changed to an A-flat1.
A quick aside: For more about the evolution of the double-valve bass trombone—including how today’s modern “in-line” double valve bass trombone came to be—have a look at my article, “Evolution: The Double-Valve Bass Trombone,” International Trombone Association Journal 43, no. 3 (July 2015), 34–43. You can read it HERE. It unpacks a great more about the development of the double-valve bass trombone including the invention of the earliest known trombone with in-line valves, a concept that was applied to a contrabass trombone (not a bass trombone) in Germany 1921. That it took until the 1970s for the in-line concept to be applied to bass trombones is a head-scratcher, and part of the story I tell in my article.
Back to Lebedev. . .
We still have to ask ourselves why Ostrander changed the triplets in measures 50 and 51 to two sixteenth notes. The same for his adding rit. on two technical passages. I can’t read his intentions, but my guess is that he concluded that most players would find the sixteenth notes easier to play than the faster triplets, and slowing a brisk technical passage was simply an easier way to make it work. Ostrander was not known for having a blistering technique; maybe he felt they were easier for himself, too. We don’t know.
WHAT EDITION SHOULD WE PLAY NOW?
Today, two editions of the Lebedev Concerto for Tuba are available: the 1995 edition by Hofmeister (the link is to Hickey’s Music Center) or Ostrander’s 1960 adaptation as Concerto in One Movement (the link is to Hickey’s Music Center). For me, there’s no question that we should play the Hofmeister edition. It is faithful to Lebedev’s intentions in every respect. Ostrander’s arrangement was useful during a time when, in the West, the USSR and East German editions of the concerto were simply not widely available. With the modern advances in bass trombone development—both the instrument and the individuals who play it—today’s players have no reason to play Ostrander’s simplified version, unless one wants to play it “for old time’s sake.” I recorded the 1995 Hofmeister edition and I have always encouraged my students to play that edition ever since it was published. Thankfully, we longer have Cold War music distribution challenges. Acquiring Lebedev’s concerto in an edition he approved is now as simple as clicking a mouse.
Still, this conversation about Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba provides us with a glimpse into Cold War musical politics, the development of the modern double-valve bass trombone, and how players (and arrangers) often make changes to a composer’s intentions for practical reasons.
Now you know the answers to some of your burning questions about the Lebedev concerto. You did have burning, questions, right?