The Trombone in 1830

I just added an entry for the year 1830 to the Trombone History Timeline: Auguste Bertini, an international musician previously active in Italy and France, relocates to England and publishes his New System for… All Musical Instruments, an instruction book for a variety of instruments. He mentions alto, tenor, and bass trombones, the alto apparently pitched in E-flat.

There are several other significant trombone-related events from the year 1830. 1830 is the year that Hector Berlioz writes Symphony Fantastique, of course, a work that employs trombones prominently. Regarding the orchestration of the uppermost trombone part, Berlioz demands, in an early document listing the instrumentation, “The alto trombone part must not be played on a big trombone, as is often done in France: I demand a true alto trombone.”

In Leipzig, Germany, a correspondent for the well-recognized music periodical Allgemeine musikalischeZeitung proclaims, “Truly we live in an age of trombones.” This observation is largely in response to the remarkable solo career of trombonist Carl Queisser, who performs often to great acclaim at Leipzig’s famous Gewandhaus and is a member of the Gewandhaus orchestra. Carl Queisser’s colleague in the orchestra, concertmaster Ferdinand David, later writes the well-known Concertino for Trombone for Queisser.

In addition, around the year 1830 some interesting trombone manufacturing events take place. In Austria, Uhlmann, a Viennese brass manufacturer, improves on Riedl’s valve design, making B-flat and G trombones with the double Vienna valve. In Strasbourg, a city on the border of France and Germany, manufacturer Charles Kretzschmann makes a rear-facing trombone, an instrument now held in the Metropolitan Museum. Rear-facing trombones, in fact, enjoy a certain vogue during the century, as a number of graphic representations depict (see 19th Century of the Trombone History Timeline).

(For sources on all of the above information, see Trombone History Timeline and Bibliography.)