New Light on the Early History of the Keyed Bugle Part I: The Astor ...

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HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY JOURNAL
horns, Bugal horns, Bassoon tops, &c. in Silver, Brass and Copper.... No. 89 St. James’s
Street, London.” 43
John Köhler I died on 3 January 1801, leaving a widow but no heirs. 44 His namesake
nephew, John Köhler II, who had been apprenticed to him in the early 1790s, then took
over the business. But he died only four years later, in April 1805. 45 After that, the business
was run by Elizabeth Köhler, the widow of either John I or John II, until 1810. 46 Thereupon
Thomas Percival, perhaps a former employee, joined in, and “the firm was generally listed
in The Post Office Annual Directory from 1809 until 1833 as ‘Percival & Kohler’ or ‘Kohler
& Percival,’ indicating that Percival was either in partnership with Elizabeth Köhler or
that he wished to maintain Köhler’s name for marketing purposes.” 47
It is probably not coincidental that the keyed bugle and bass horn turn up in Astor’s
advertisements at almost the same time, and that the former is noted as being an octave
higher than the latter. Dudgeon comments, “I think that the bass horn was an inspiration
in the sense that it was a successful vented brass instrument and musicians simply asked
the question, ‘What would happen if we applied these principles to the military bugle?’” 48
If indeed the keyed bugle was modeled on the bass horn, invented in the late 1790s, and
therefore John I had not yet invented the keyed bugle while John II was apprenticed to
him, then John II may not have been familiar with this new instrument, and its production
could have ceased with John I’s death in 1801. Even if John II had continued to make
the instrument, his own death in 1805 created another hiatus in the firm that could have
had the same result.
John Badcock’s A Living Picture of London for 1828 describes the practice of coachmen
and guards indulging in some private trade on the side: “this begets the necessity of having
confidants ready to hand off the packages; and the persons so engaged hang about the
inn-yards, until the horn, or Köhler, or keyed bugle, announces the approach of their
employer.” 49 Did Badcock mean “Köhler bugle” or just an instrument known simply as “a
Köhler”? Köhler and Percival must certainly have been prominent makers of the instrument
in the 1820s. It is just conceivable that the name refers back to the prior invention of the
keyed bugle by John Köhler I around 1800. More likely, as Arnold Myers suggests, “a
Köhler” was a coach horn, for which the firm was famous later. 50
Other evidence for the keyed bugle before 1810
There is some ambiguous evidence that the keyed bugle was performed in concerts before
1810. John Hyde’s benefit concert at his rooms in Tottenham Street on 26 May 1800, in
which he played a trumpet concerto and the accompaniment to “Let the bright Seraphim,”
also featured “Finale, with the Bugle-horn obligato.” 51 Hyde (see section in Part 2) was
associated with the invention of the slide trumpet, and thus clearly interested in new brass
instruments. Moreover, around 1818, he published a tutor for the keyed bugle. 52
The German trumpeter Johann Georg Schmidt (1774–1822) 53 seems to have arrived
in London in early 1802 and quickly made an impression: on 1 March, he played a trumpet
concerto, “being his first appearance,” in Friedrich Griesbach’s concert at the Great Room,