THE ROMANTIC TRUMPET - Historic Brass Society

TARR 225
quiem, performed during the Vienna Congress of 1815, should be mentioned. Two other
keyed trumpet soloists, Joseph Werner and Anton Khayll, appeared in Vienna after 1815,
and in the late 1820s the Gambati brothers played on such instruments in Paris and London,
one of them later emigrating to the New World. 87
An entire Divertimento for Klappentromba concertante and small orchestra was written
for an unknown soloist by Josef Fiala (1754-1816). Fiala, born in Bohemia, was employed
from 1792 until his death as a cellist in Donaueschingen, but he seems to have written this
pleasant work for a Bohemian virtuoso, for the surviving material (which is now in the
National Museum of Prague) came from the library of the Schlofikapelle ofKuks, in northern
Bohemia. 88 The florid solo part, in D, has a range from g to e" (a to fl) and is fully chromatic
from b to It consists of a Largo forty-seven measures long, and an Allegro 116 measures
in length. In measure 42, which bridges the two sections, there is even a written-out cadenza,
a rare occurrence in music of this time.
The keyed trumpet survived in the military music of Austria and northern Italy, and
seems to have been used in Italian orchestras as well. Some caution must be exercised when
perusing early sources, however, for Italians also used the word chiavi (keys) to denote valves
before the terminology became stabilized. Mendelssohn seems to have unequivocally meant
keys, however, writing about his impressions of Roman musicians during his stay there in
1830-31 in less than complimentary terms: "The trumpeters play all the time on the
accursed keyed trumpets." 9 ° Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835), in Norma (1831), wrote
specifically for a first tromba colle chiavi—I suppose that because of the early date, keys, not
valves, are meant—in D (sinfonia), in C (act 2), and in E 6 (act 3), the second part (with no
particular instrument designation) being in B 6 andC. The first and second parts are coupled
by pitch in the entire opera as follows: D/Bt', D/C, C/C, Eb/B 6 , C/B 6 , and E/E. The
instruments had the following reservoir of tones: 91
le tromba in
con le chitty'
2 0 tromba in Sib
7 0 tromba in Re
imb b o b.. ( 71
2 0 tromba in Do
Table I
Reservoir of tones for first and second tromba colle chiavi in Bellini's Norma
(1831)