Micrologus; Baroque Brass

84-19 BAROQUE BRASS

Many times on Micrologus we have heard Renaissance music for brass instruments, but never before have we focused on brass music from the baroque era. So today, we explore baroque brass instruments and repertory.

The most active brass ensemble of the Renaissance was, unquestionably, the cornett and sackbut band. And especially in England and Germany, it survived beyond the bounds of the Renaissance era—in England, because of its traditional position as part of the Royal Band of musicians; and in Germany, because the cornett and sackbut band had proved one of the most serviceable ensembles of the Stadtpfeifer—the town musicians on regular salary in so many German municipalities.

The sackbut, you may recall, is very similar to the modern trombone and, in fact, it was known in Italy, even during the Renaissance, as the trombone. We use the term sackbut nowadays to distinguish it from its modern counterpart. The differences between the two are in the mouthpiece and bore design and, most obviously, in the shape of the bell, which is much less flared in the earlier instrument. All these things result in a sound which is softer and less brilliant than the modern trombone, but which blends well in an ensemble.

The cornett, or cornetto, or Zink, is an instrument which has no modern counterpart. It looks somewhat like a woodwind instrument since it is a wooden tube with fingerholes to change the pitch, but it produces the sound by means of a small trumpet-like mouthpiece, and that is how it qualifies for association with the brass family. The sound, again, is softer than that of the modern trumpet, but there is a timbre difference as well: the cornett sound is almost like a cross between a trumpet and an oboe.

Here is a sample of the old-fashioned baroque brass repertory. A "Corrant" from Matthew Locke's Music for His Majesty's Sagbuts and Cornetts, from around 1660. The performance is by the Michael Laird Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble.

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In Italy, at the beginning of the baroque era, cornetts and sackbuts had a great deal of visibility as primary constituents of the orchestra of San Marco in Venice. But the taste was changing. The violin was providing composers with new virtuosic and expressive possibilities. So when the virtuoso cornettist and master of instrumental music at San Marco, Giovanni Bassano, died in 1617, he was replaced by a violinist. What might, through attrition, have been a fairly gradual change from brass to strings at San Marco, was hastened c. 1630, when Venice was struck by the plague. Virtually all the remaining brass players succumbed and were replaced by the maestro di concerti with more of his fellow string players. Before this precipitous demise, however, the brass players of San Marco had some brilliant works written for them in the new baroque style.

From his 1621 collection of Sonate concertate here is Dario Castello's Sonata for Cornetto, Trombone and Continuo. It is performed by an ensemble named for the composer: Concerto Castello, with cornetto player Bruce Dickey, and trombone (or sackbut) player Charles Toet.

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The cornetto was soon eclipsed by the violin in the mainstream of baroque music-making, although it survived in some areas in municipal bands, and as an instrument to double soprano voices in sacred music. J. S. Bach used it that way in about a dozen cantatas, for example.

The trombone fared somewhat better, especially in German-speaking countries. In a most curious circumstance, this was probably due to the work of a person long dead but still mightily influential: Martin Luther. Most of you are familiar, I am sure, with the image of the "last trumpet" and the phrase from 1st Corinthians which Handel used in his Messiah: "the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." That comes from the King James version of the Bible, published in 1611. German-speakers of the 17th century would have been most familiar with Luther's translation of the Bible, in which that instrument is rendered, not as Trompet or Trompete, but as Posaune, the German word for "trombone." Ever wondered why Bach used trombones in his famous Cantata #4 Christ lag in Todesbaden (Christ lay in the bonds of death), or why Mozart used them in his Requiem and in the fateful scene from Don Giovanni? Obviously, when Gabriel blew his horn in German-speaking lands, it was a trombone and not a trumpet.

Among the most beautiful later baroque works for trombone are some by Marc Antonio Ziani, a transplanted Italian, who was master of music at the Austrian Imperial court in the early 18th century.

Here is an excerpt from his motet Alma redemptoris mater, performed by countertenor Paul Esswood with the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, directed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

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The trombone, at least, had the advantage of being a respected, legitimate instrument for ensemble music at the beginning of the baroque era. The Instrument we know as the French Horn had probably not even evolved by the beginning of the 17th century.

Around the middle of the 17th century appeared a large coiled horn known in France as a trompe. It is not clear that it originated in France, but the association was strong enough that by the 1680s, the English were referring to such instruments as French horns.

To the French, they were merely instruments of the hunt. But about 1680, the Bohemian Count Franz Anton von Sporck heard some horns while on an extended visit to France. He was so captivated by the sound that he had two of his retainers taught to play, and took several instruments back to Bohemia. His personal enthusiasm engendered schools of Austro-Bohemian horn-makers and players that were to lead Europe for over a hundred years.

These include the Leichnamschneider brothers of Vienna whose horns set the standard for design and craftsmanship in the first half of the 18th century, and Anton Joseph Hampl who, in the middle of the 18th century, was responsible for codifying the technique of handstopping—the cupping of the hand inside the bell of the horn to achieve pitches not normally available in the harmonic series, and to refine the tone towards the sound familiar to us in the modern orchestral instrument.

But even before that refinement in technique, the horn was finding a place in the orchestra. Its first recorded orchestral use was in Reinhard Kaiser's 1705 opera Octavia. In the Hamburg opera orchestra for that landmark event was the young George Frideric Handel, who would later feature horns so memorably in his Water Music of 1717.

Here is the Academy of Ancient Music, with an excerpt from Handel's Water Music.

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J. S. Bach wrote some parts for horn which are well-known, for example, his first Brandenburg Concerto of 1719, and the Quoniam movement of his B-Minor Mass. Less well-known are the concertos for horn by the indefatigable Vivaldi. Here is an excerpt from one of his two concertos for 2 valveless natural horns, strings, and basso continuo. The performance is by Concerto Amsterdam. One of the two horn players, by the way, is Hermann Baumann, who is known also as a virtuoso on the modern horn.

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The situation of the natural trumpet at the beginning of the baroque era was different from that of any of the other brass instruments. Like the sackbut, its outward shape was already established by the end of the Renaissance, but its use was not as an ensemble instrument. Wealthy nobles, churches, and municipalities used trumpets almost exclusively for ceremonial purposes and as signaling devices in the military. In the early 17th century, we begin to find references to clarino playing—using the high register, where the notes of the harmonic series are closer together, and thus the possibilities for more melodic playing are increased. But, while the potential for more complete participation in ensemble music was there, it long remained unrealized, because of what was known as the guild system. In many parts of Europe, the guild regulated the circumstances under which trumpets could play, who could make trumpets, who could buy them, who could learn to play, and it even provided penalties for Stadtpfeifer (town musicians) who dared to play music in the style of the ceremonial or military trumpet. Gradually these restrictions wore away, so that by the early 18th century, Stadtpfeifer, at least, were allowed to play trumpets in church services, and this opened the way for the trumpet parts in Bach's cantatas and other large concerted works.

We will be sampling a movement from a Bach cantata in a moment, but first we are going to listen to a work for trumpet from the 17th century.

The composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber achieved his greatest fame as a virtuoso violinist and maestro di cappella of the cathedral and court of Salzburg. He is, however, responsible for a number of works for trumpet, no doubt because no less than twelve of the instrumentalists in his charge were capable trumpeters. Here is the opening of his Sonata No. 4 for trumpet and strings, performed by Don Smithers with the Clarion Consort under Tom Koopman.

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Undoubtedly, the most famous work for trumpet from the early 18th century is Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto. It was a landmark work in its day because it took the trumpet up into a range that had never been required of it before. And yet, it is not the most difficult work for trumpet by J. S. Bach. That distinction might arguably be accorded to Cantata #66, Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen. Bach wrote the Brandenburg concerti when he was at Cöthen, but when he moved to Leipzig in 1723, he had at his disposal the services of one of the greatest trumpet virtuosos of all time, Gottfried Reiche. Cantata #66 was written for Easter Monday, 1724, Bach's first Easter season in Leipzig. One wonders what passed between composer and virtuoso after the first rehearsal of its merciless opening movement. Here is Don Smithers with the Leonhardt Consort, the Hannover Boys' Choir, and Collegium Vocale Gent with an excerpt from J. S. Bach's Cantata #66, Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen.

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You’ve been listening to a program exploring the history and repertory of Baroque Brass.