THE ROMANTIC TRUMPET - Historic Brass Society

TARR 223
The stopped notes employed by Bagans are easy to locate: they consist of a', b', el'", and all
the others with sharp signs.
It is worthy of note that the Hanover trumpeter Friedrich Sachse (1809-1893), famed
as a soloist on the valved trumpet and whom Berlioz had praised during a concert tour in
Germany in 1842-43, 67 played his own Concertinofiir die einfache Trompete—another name
for the natural (possibly stopped) trumpet—as late as March 7, 1850 in the Leipzig
Gewandhaus. 68
Another work which has recently come to light which has a part for an extremely agile
chromatic trumpet in D is the Andante and Polacca for trumpet and orchestra by Gottfried
Hermann (1808-1878). 69 It was written in 1828 while the composer was living in Hanover,
but the name of the soloist, and indeed, even the type of instrument, is unknown. (Friedrich
Sachse is out of the question, since he did not arrive in Hanover until 1833.) 70 Dahlqvist
considers the work to be for stopped trumpet. 71 Frequent lower-neighbor appoggiaturas (g#'
to a', dr to e", etc.) point to this type of trumpet, but certain rapid triplet configurations
in measures 142-150 (c' d' c', e' f e', e' e', g' a' g', a' b' a') could make one think of the
keyed trumpet (see below). The trumpet part's range, from g (once: even c) to g" (with an
occasional a"), falls within that prescribed by Bagans. Within its range, the trumpet moves
about in a moderately high tessitura.
la. The stopped cornet (ca. 1825-ca. 1860); hand-stopping on the military trumpet
The little method by Cam already mentioned (ca. 1825) also treats hand-stopping up
to three half-steps on the cornet. 72 In the body of surviving literature written for the Royal
Prussian Wind Corps and listed in Thouret's catalogue of the Berlin Hausbibliothek, many
of the trumpet parts call for occasional stopped notes. 73 This aspect of trumpet technique
has yet to be studied in detail. 74
2. The keyed trumpet (ca. 1775-ca. 1840)
The little pamphlet by Dahlqvist written in 1975 is still the most complete source of
information on the keyed trumpet. 75 It also includes photos clearly distinguishing this
instrument from the keyed bugle (see below): the former instrument's keys are operated by
one hand, usually the left, whereas those of the latter are so arranged that two hands are
necessary to work them all. With both these instruments, the "keys cover tone-holes, and
when opened they raise the pitch....The first keyed trumpets were pitched in D or El' but
later, about 1815, they were often constructed in G, A, or Ai', with crooks for the lower
pitches." 76 Surviving instruments are almost always in one of these three keys. 77 It is obvious
that crooking down an instrument with fixed tone-holes creates intonation problems.
The first known experiment providing a brass instrument with keys dates from the
1760s: in November 1766, Ferdinand Keilbel and his son-in-law demonstrated two keyed
horns called Amor-Schall for Tsarina Catherina II in St. Petersburg. 78 Subsequent experiments
with keyed trumpets were carried out by the Weimar court trumpeter Schwanitz,