Part II: The alto trombone is rarer than it was

Ken Shifrin: The Alto Trombone in the Orchestra: 1800-2000¹

Determining the Type of Instrument used as First Trombone by Bruckner, Brahms and Dvořák.²

Introduction

Thus during the second half of the nineteenth century, the alto trombone had all but vanished from the orchestras in France, Italy and England. As their military counterparts³ had done previously, orchestral composers increasingly abandoned the alto and replaced it with the tenor trombone – 'le meilleur de tous sans contredit⁴ – inevitably bowing to the advice given by Praetorius more than two centuries earlier: 'Alt-Posaune, die Harmonie in solchem kleinem Corpore nicht so gut, als wenn auf der rechten gemeinen Posaune'.⁵ Led by Wagner's example, even the composers of Germany and the Austrian Monarchy, 'the former guardians of the traditional [ATB] trio' ⁶ would abandon the alto.

Of all the major orchestral composers who wrote for the trombone, the works of Bruckner, Brahms and Dvor(ák are the most perplexing with regard to whether the alto or tenor instrument was intended for the first part. Scholarly editions and modern publications are often misleading; today's experts are frequently inconsistent and contradictory. To a certain degree this is due to ambiguity on the part of music authorities contemporaneous with these composers, perhaps owing to the fact that this was a period of great flux, with divergent performance practice often dependent on locale. For example, whereas both Kastner (c.1840) and Adolph Marx (1847) concur that the alto was a commonplace fixture in German orchestras,⁸ In 1850 Lobe stated that the orchestral trombone section could include either an alto or tenor on the first part.¹⁰ he is unclear whether German composers were still writing for the alto at that time.

On the other hand, around 1880 Ludwig Bussler reported that 'die Alt-Posaune findet sich noch in den meisten deutschen Orchestern'.¹¹ According to Kunitz, 'spätestens von dieser Zeit an begann man jedoch, die Altposaunestimmen, soweit technisch möglich, mit der Tenorposaune auszuführen'.¹² Montagu states that in German orchestras in which the alto had been replaced, the trombone section used tenor instruments of three different bore sizes: the narrowest bore was used by the first player, and the second player used a smaller version of the B flat/F used by the third.¹³ Although first trombone parts originally intended for the alto trombone could be managed on a small-bore tenor, the composer's intention with respect to sound, colour and balance was lost, for it was not so much the tessitura of the first part that demanded the alto but its brighter, lighter sound.

[D]och ist stets zu bedenken, daß diese Stimmen früher in jedem Falle mit der etwas heller und leichter klingenden Altposaune ausgeführt worden sind, und daß die Komponisten diesen Klang bewußt eingesetzt haben... Wenn jedoch das höchste Register der Tenorposaune zur Ausführung der Altposaunenstimme verwendet werden muß, ergibt sich eine Klangwirkung, die mit der Notwendigkeit einer werkgetreuen Wiedergabe nicht vereinbar ist. Die höchsten Töne der Tenorposaune haben das Klangmerkmal einer enormen Spannung und Intensität und lassen erkennen, daß hier der Klang des schweren und ernsten Instrumentes bis in die äußerste Höhe getrieben worden ist, während die gleichhohen Töne der Altposaune selbstverständlicher, freier und auch heller klingen.¹⁴

Walter Piston remarked that 'occasionally notes for the alto trombone that are too high to be played on the tenor are most often given to the trumpet',¹⁶ Hausmann agreed, stating that instead of the intended alto trombone 'wird meistens die Tenorposaune – in Ausnahmefälle auch eine F-Ventil Trompete – verwendet'.¹⁷ Similarly, Schweitzer wrote that 'in den Mottetenchören die von Bläsern begleitet werden, wird man Sopran- und Alt-posaune wohl am besten durch Flügelhorn ersetzen'.¹⁹ In any event, Kunitz argued that this would be an unsatisfactory solution due to the difference in the sound produced by an instrument with valves as opposed to the slide:

[E]ine Ausführung der Alt- (und auch der Sopran-) posaunenstimmen mit einem Flügelhorn ist natürlich völlig abzulehnen, ebenso wie die Ausführung mit einer Trompete... Zusammenfassend ist nach alledem hierzu folgendes zu sagen: Der Klang der Altposaune entspricht nicht dem Klang der Trompete und ist durch diesen nicht zu ersetzen... [E]ine Klanggleichheit zwischen der hohen Posaune und diesen Instrumenten im übrigen auch infolge der nicht Verschiedenheit der Rohrform, der Mensur und der Bohrung des Mundstückes nicht möglich ist.²⁰

The statements by Piston, Schweitzer and Hausmann seem to indicate that with the ascendancy of the tenor, few trombonists doubled on the alto. Noting that violinists are rarely expected to double on viola, Kunitz maintained that trombonists:

immer mehr von der Altposaune abwandten und ihre Verwendung bisweilen sogar ablehnten, so liegt der Grund hierfür in der steigenden Spezialisierung der Instrumentalisten auf ein bestimmtes Instrument infolge der immer größeren spieltechnischen Anforderungen durch die Komponisten.²¹

According to Jadassohn, by 1889 'die Altposaune wird immerseltener',²³ Frederick Corder concurred, writing with regard to the orchestral trombone section that 'until recently it was supposed to exist in three sizes called Alto, Tenor and Bass',²⁵ Finally, in 1900 Felix Weingartner concluded 'daß die Tenorposaune überall an der Stelle der Altposaune getreten ist, die gar nicht mehr vorkommt'.²⁶

A common fallacy in assessing whether the first trombone part in works of these composers was intended for an alto or tenor is the tendency to evaluate the upper register by today's standards. The inherent risk of error has already been demon-strated by Dr Glendening with the first parts by Schubert.²⁷ While there was not complete agreement among authorities during the second half of the nineteenth century as to the recommended range of the tenor trombone, the practical upper-most limit of the instrument was clearly thought to be considerably lower than it is today. We recall Kastner's advice to composers around 1840 that, although 'quelques artistes' were capable of playing notes higher than g, 'même Sib', that:

on ne pas s'en servir parce que d'ordinaire l'exécutant ne serait pas à même de les donner.²⁸

Berlioz wrote in 1844²⁹ that it was inadvisable to take the tenor trombone beyond bb', yet he himself had taken the first (tenor) trombone to a b' in the overture Le Carnaval Romain in the same year. In 1847, Marx argued that it was best to write for the tenor trombone between B and g'.^'30 Since Wagner had already scored a' for the second trombone in Lohengrin four years earlier, Marx may have been overly cautious – or he may have heard performances in which the players struggled to reach these notes.³¹ Lobe stated in 1859, somewhat more realistically, that the tenor's range extended from E to as high as d'', 'doch thut man wohl, sie nie höher als bis b zu schreiben'.³² Similarly, Gevaert asserted that 'le trombone ténor donc parcourir toute l'échelle chromatique comprise entre Mi and Sib'.³³ Yet almost a decade later Bussler wrote that the orchestral tenor trombone was capable of playing from F to ab' 'in gleichmässigen edelsten Klang'.³⁴ Curiously, he described the dance-band trombonist's range as being from E to bb', but with the 'bevorzugte Lage' (preferred range) of F to g'.³⁵ Very conservatively, Jadassohn judged in 1889 that since:

die hohen Töne der Posaune besser durch die Ventiltrompete, die tiefen durch die Tuba erlangen kann, so wird man gut thun, sich im Satze für die Posaunen auf die Tonreihe vom grossen G (allenfalls auch F) bis zum eingestrichenen a zu beschränken.³⁶

Near the turn of the century, shortly before Strauss would require a d'' in Zarathustra, Kappey cited the tenor's range as Bb to c''.³⁷

In attempting to discern the species of first trombone for which Bruckner, Brahms and Dvor(ák wrote, it is important to bear in mind that, as Berlioz and Gevaert pointed out, the use of the term 'alto trombone', or the employment of an alto clef in the composer's score is an unreliable indication of his intention. The most dependable and earliest source which can be traced directly to the composer is the first handwritten part. It is also worth recalling the words of Marx, who reaffirmed the statements of Sundelin, Kastner, Berlioz and Gevaert, and whose text Bruckner used as a student:³⁹ In the absence of an erste Abschriftstimme (first hand-copied part), we must turn to the first trombone part from the earliest printed edition and seek out substantiating evidence, if possible, to arrive at an informed judgement.

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