[Trombone-l] trombones and choral music

[Howard Weiner]

At 05:41 02.05.2007 -0700, thetubameister at adelphia.net wrote:

>There's one question I have.  I can certainly buy that this part is 
>perfectly playable without a valve, I have been studying the 
>instruments themselves for years, have created for myself an imense 
>digital archive, and I have never seen an extant period Bb Bass 
>trombone.  The only thing close was an American 19th century 
>Baritone Trombone in Bb.
>
>Where might I get the specs and perhaps a photo of something like this?

It depends what period you're talking about.

As I see it, the trombones made in the eighteenth century seem to 
fall into two categories:

The "old-fashioned" instruments (alto, tenor, quart, and sometimes 
soprano) still made and used primarily for Protestant church music 
(Bach cantatas) and Stadtpfeiffer and other ensembles (e.g., the 
Moravian trombone choirs). The some 23 surviving trombones of the 
Schmied family of Pfaffendorf come to mind here, an number of which 
found their way during the eighteenth century to Moravian communities 
in the USA.

Then there are the trombones by Viennese makers, which would most 
likely have been the instruments used in Vienna. A handful of 
trombones from ca. 1738-40 (all tenors) by the Leichamschneider 
brothers have survived, for the most part in Viennese collections; at 
the time these were made, trombones were used in Vienna almost 
exclusively in the alto and tenor ranges, with the bass part being 
covered by a bassoon. -- So you're not going to find a B-flat bass 
trombone here.

In the early nineteenth century, we finally have a couple written sources:

In his trombone method of ca. 1811, Josef Froehlich states "In more 
recent times, in some places the three types of trombone have been 
built in the same size... Here, nothing is different other than the 
mouthpiece." And: "As with every wind instrument, the construction of 
the mouthpiece is of greatest importance... the three kinds of 
trombone must have different mouthpieces." And: "The bass trombone 
illustrated here is in B-flat and thus resembles a trumpet tuned in B-flat."

In 1816, Gottfried Weber wrote: "In principle, this bass trombone is 
merely a B-flat trumpet.... The tenor trombone is exactly the same 
instrument as the above-described bass trombone... The alto trombone, 
too, can be exactly the same instrument (namely, for all practical 
purposes, a B-flat trumpet), only that, by means of an even smaller 
mouthpiece, still higher partials can be used."

And in 1827, Andreas Nemetz wrote in his trombone method: "The 
illustrated bass, tenor, and alto trombone is pitched in B-flat... 
the mouthpiece must be different for each of the three types of trombone."

So here, too, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, you're 
probably not going to find an identifiable B-flat bass trombone, 
since it was actually the mouthpiece that made the difference, not 
the instrument.

Starting with the second quarter of the nineteenth century, things 
really started happening in brass instrument making and design, and I 
don't pretend to know all that much about this period. I do know that 
in the Vienna court opera orchestra, valve trombones supplanted the 
slide trombones in ca. 1836 (and probably a bit earlier in Italy).

In 1862 the Vienna court opera orchestra adopted French opera pitch 
as its standard tuning pitch. Accordingly, new wind instruments had 
to be purchased: these included four B-flat trombones (one with three 
valves and three with four valves) and two three-valve bass trombones in F.

Also something to consider is that all the solo pieces written for 
Carl Traugott Queisser (including the David Concertino) were 
designated for "bass trombone" and predate Sattler's addition of an F 
attachment to the trombone in 1839.

So this is where you're going to have to look for the B-flat bass 
trombone, though here, too, the difference may well have been the 
mouthpiece, not the instrument itself.

Howard


--
Howard Weiner
h.weiner at online.de
http://howard-weiner.de/

Tosca jumped to a conclusion.