[Trombone-l] Berlioz, Beethoven

[Walter Barrett]

On Jan 4, 2008, at 7:40 AM, Keith Marr wrote:

>
> The only question for me is the choice of model of Bb trombone as the
> spikiness of the small bore sound needs to be avoided in Viennese  
> playing.
> It is necessary to cultivate a soft warm sound. My 44H vocabell  
> works very
> nicely. Maybe one of the German makes, with a bell krantz, would be  
> worth a
> try?


When I was in Vienna last year, I visited the house where Mozart  
lived, now a museum. In the exhibit on the Requiem, they had a tenor  
trombone typical of Vienna at the time. I had to sneak a picture,  
since they didn't allow photographs in the museum, but you can see it  
here...

http://tromboneforum.org/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=476

Howard would know better than I if the bell flare/general design used  
slightly later in Beethoven's time was any different than the one in  
my photo.


At any rate, unless the strings all change to gut strings, and the  
trumpets and horns use valveless instruments, I don't think we can be  
faulted too much for using either an alto or tenor. This is not to say  
that our modern performances shouldn't be informed by what the  
practice was in the composer's day. Anything that we can come up  
with , here in 2008, with regards to authentic sound of the late  
1700's, is only at best, our educated guess. (Howard's guesses  
probably being more educated than most of ours...)


Walter Barrett

Violin- “an instrument which tries to tickle human ears by the  
friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.”
	-Ambrose Bierce

Alto, tenor, bass trombones
Bass trumpet, euphonium, tuba
Yamaha Artist/Clinician
http://www.walterbarrett.com