| Dave --
At the risk of repeating myself, I think that what is going to be successful in an audition is playing in tune, in time, with a good sound, accurately, and with clear and convincing musical intent. If you do those things, you will get the committee's attention, if it can be gotten. If the only way to impress them is with some flashy piece, well, perhaps that's not an orchestra you really want to be part of. If your best piece is the Tomasi, then perhaps it would be a good choice. Otherwise, deliberately looking for something odd to make a splash is not going to help. My personal feeling is that it would be way more impressive to be the guy who really nailed the snot out of the Haydn concerto than the guy who played some French piece with double-tonguing in it.
What I'm saying is that if the piece that best displays your playing is a little out-of-the-ordinary, that's fine. But playing something non-standard just for the sake of not playing Haydn or Hummel is another story entirely.
As for the Neruda, I can think of no good reason to walk into an audition and play a technically unimpressive horn concerto that is the only known work of a forgotten third-rate composer. |