18 News - Historic Brass Society

$233.26 is the offer price quoted by Amazon) may limit that potential,
— Trevor Herbert
by Hugh MacDonald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
xxxix + 388 pages. £75. ISBN 0-521-23953-2.
is one of the most important primary sources for brass
initially published in 1844 with a revised edition in 1855, his intention
was not merely to describe the musical instruments that were in
common use during his time, but to explain their idiom. He tried to
convey their character, and their strengths and weaknesses in various
combinations and in the various contexts in which they were used. He
also had a strong sense of historical continuity and made references
(not always accurate) to the music of composers who were historically
distant from him.
From Berlioz then we get as good a sense as we get from anyone of
the way that musical instruments were understood in the nineteenth
ter
of his understanding, and that point of reference needs to be taken
into consideration. But unlike some canonical writers on instruments
(such as Praetorius) he travelled widely, and was also a keen observer
of visiting groups to the French capital. All this means that his book
is important on two levels. It contains information about instruments
and their applications in a range of contexts, and it unwittingly reveals
much about the way that players played, the orthodoxies they were
expected to observe and often their technical limitations.
The most widely available previous edition of the is that completed
by Mary Cowden Clarke in 1856, which was still the subject
1904/5 German edition, which was itself the subject of translation
in 1948 by Theodore Front. This translation and edition by Hugh
Macdonald is more accurate, informative and lucid than any other.
Macdonald places both the book and its individual components into
a context that is infused with a wide knowledge and understanding of
instruments and repertoire of the times in which Berlioz lived. These
my sole point of criticism. The publisher has distinguished between
the words of Berlioz and those of Macdonald by a variation in the font
size, but it is so slight that it is hardly distinguishable to the naked or
(in my case) spectacled eye. The words themselves quickly reveal the
authorship, but it is a minor irritation.
The publication of this translation is a major event. It should be the
starting point for anyone who wishes to understand brass instruments
in the nineteenth century.
— Trevor Herbert
mation,
Photographs, and Database by Richard Schwartz and Iris
Schwartz. Published by the authors, 2005.
As Trevor Herbert commented in his review of Bands at the St. Louis
debt to Richard and Iris Schwartz for their painstaking work. Now the
more personal perspective on the topic. In choosing resources such as
family papers, letters, minutes of meetings, newspaper articles, and
obituaries, in the words of the authors, the aim to view the Fair as a
more human and accessible experience. They certainly achieve this
goal, putting this part of the musical history of the Fair, as well as the
period, into fuller view.
The authors have managed to unearth many accounts that relate to the
everyday, often dealing with the frustration of musical performance
that indeed put a human perspective on their study. Anecdotes of the
famous and the once famous are laced throughout the book including
tales of the likes of Innes, Sousa, Helen May Butler, Arthur Pryor, and
many others. The essay on the inclusion of ragtime music at the Fair
was particularly interesting. There was an initial ban on ragtime music
but was lifted due to strong support from some musicians as well as
the public who, at that time, clamored for it. This supplement contains
biographical essays, photos and much fascinating information about
the band music of a special event of a long-gone era.
— Jeff Nussbaum
Saint-Arroman, Jean, ed. Cor: Méthodes, traités, dictionnaires
et encyclopédies, ouvrages généraux [Horn: methods, treatises,
dictionaries and encyclopedias, general works]. Méthodes & traités,
21. Série I. France 1600–1800. Courlay, France: J. M. Fuzeau, 2003.
ISMN M230658799. OCLC 54509600.
Contains (in chronological order) :
Marin Mersenne, Harmonie universelle (1636);
Pierre Trichet, “Traité des instruments” (ca. 1640);
Jean Serre de Rieux, Les dons des enfans de Latone: la musique et la chasse
du Cerf (1734);
Ancelet, Observations sur la musique, les musicians, et les instrumens
(1757);
François-Alexandre-Pierre de Garsault, Notionnaire, ou mémorial raisonné
(1761);
clarinette et le cor (1764);
(1772);
Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne
(1780);
Encyclopédie méthodique Article sur le cor (1788);
1793).
Othon-Joseph Vandenbrock, Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour apprendre
Anton-Joseph Hampel and Jan Václav Stich, Seule et vraie méthode pour apprendre
facilement les élémens des premier et second cors (ca. 1798).
donner du cor (ms., n.d.).
Editions Fuzeau, long known for their excellent music facsimiles,
inaugurated a new series, consisting of facsimiles of early method
in this series to be devoted to a brass instrument. As seven volumes
can only regret that brass instruments do not have so large a body of
pedagogical literature from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
This single volume devoted to the horn, with more than 300 pages,
contains a collection of facsimiles dated before 1800. The reproduction,
in a 24 x 33cm format, is exceptionally good. This series has two
various methods, treatises, theoretical, and aesthetic works dealing
with their instruments, and on the other to make this documentation
available to them at a reasonable price and in a practical format.”
HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY NEWSLETTER - WINTER 2005 | 23