[Trombone-l] Berlioz, Beethoven

[Dick Sleeman]

My last post (!) was apparently sent prematurely, that is before I read Howard 
Weiner's
post from yesterday. I wrote:

> Albrechtsberger wrote a concert for alto trombone and orchestra as early as
> 1769. Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 and took lessons with Albrechtsberger,
> so it is very likely that he knew about the alto and how to write for it.

Then Howard wrote a.o.:

> How do you know that Albrechtsberger wrote his trombone concerto for alto
> trombone? The title on the manuscript reads "Concerto in B del Giorgio
> Albrechtsberger"; and the part in the score is labeled "Trombone
> conc[ertato]."  The suffix "alto" was added by 20th-century editors who were
> misled by the alto clef of the solo part.

I had my information from Robin Gregory, "The trombone, the instrument & its 
music" Londen, 1973. (Faber
and Faber), p. 174.

> In 1790 Albrechtsberger published a treatise on composition (Anweisung zur
> Composition) that also contains a short description of each instrument,
> including its range and notes that could be played on it. His "alto" trombone
> has as its lowest note the c below the staff in alto clef, which is a fourth
> lower than the lowest tone given for the E-flat alto in contemporary sources.
> He also specifies the e (a third above this c), which was however not
> available on the E-flat alto trombones of the time since they had short slides
> and consequently only six positions -- and this e would have been in seventh
> position, an impossibility. Thus it has to be concluded that Albrechtsberger's
> "alto" trombone was in B-flat, which agrees with other information concerning
> the "alto" trombone in Vienna at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century.
> (See my article for full information.)

I humbly stand corrected!

Regards,

Dick