The Early Trombone: A Catalogue of Music
Turnhout, , Belgium
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
Date of Publication: 2023
URL: http://www.brepols.net
Language: English
Paperback. 840 pages.
Primary Genre: Study Material - book
Throughout the history of our noble instrument, the field of trombone research has shown itself to be a mixed bag. The list of books, articles, and dissertations that both create and promote myths and misinformation about the trombone is long, and most students and teachers today don’t know the difference between compilation (taking the work of others and repackaging it to fit a narrative) and research (digging to bring new, verified insights to a subject). This sorry state of affairs was the subject of a trombone research roundtable at the 2024 International Trombone Festival. At that time, Benny Sluchin, Simon Wills, and I discussed the situation while engaging with the audience about ways that the history of the trombone can be told better and more accurately. Simon reminded those assembled that, “If the academic isn’t sufficiently imaginative, or disciplined, or rigorous, it is very easy to draw completely erroneous conclusions.”
It is with gratitude, therefore, that we offer thanks to three researchers who are, indeed, imaginative, disciplined, and rigorous, and who have produced one of the most impressive books ever written about a specific and vitally important slice of the trombone’s contribution to civilization: music for the early trombone.
One can hardly imagine three more capable individuals to write The Early Trombone: A Catalogue of Music than Howard T. Weiner, Charlotte A. Leonard, and D. Linda Pearse. Howard Weiner’s many articles for the Historic Brass Society Journal (he serves as its co-editor) and his editions of trombone repertoire have given trombonists important insights into early trombone methods and music, instruments, and performance practice. Charlotte Leonard (Professor Emeritus of Music at Laurentian University, Canada) and D. Linda Pearse (Associate Professor at Mount Allison University, Canada) have distinguished themselves with their careers as teachers, scholars, editors, and performers. Between them, the authors report they have a combined 95 years invested in cataloging and assembling this new book. It was time well spent, and we are in their debt.
How many times have we heard someone say, “The trombone didn’t have much repertoire before the mid-nineteenth century.” Yes, we all know of the famous eighteenth-century concerti for trombone (not for the small alto trombone, by the way) by Georg Christoph Wagenseil (with a possible assist from Georg Reutter the Younger) and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, and large ensemble works from that time like Mozart’s Requiem that employed trombones. But the uncritical assumption has been that there wasn’t much for trombonists to do before around 1800. It, then, will come as a surprise that Weiner, Leonard, and Pearse have discovered nearly 9000 works composed between 1505 and c.1800 that include parts for trombone. 9000 is a very large number and this present volume enlightens us in ways we could not ever have imagined.
The Early Trombone is a catalog, and as such it serves as a bibliographic resource to help performers, teachers, conductors, and scholars identify and locate music written that includes one or more trombones during the first centuries of the instrument’s existence. At 840 pages, it is nothing if not comprehensive, and once the reader becomes familiar with the abbreviations used in the book for musical instruments, musical terms, and source libraries and archives around the world, the pages begin to reveal their treasures.
After a discussion of other books that have undertaken a survey of some of the trombone’s early literature—including Michael Collver and Bruce Dickey’s excellent, A Catalog of Music for the Cornett, or, as it is popularly called, the cornetto (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996)—the authors lay out the scope of their project and some of the challenges they faced. Given that modern editions sometimes make both alterations and compromises to the original source material, Weiner, Leonard, and Pearce discuss the importance of laying eyes on as much primary source material as possible and eschewing conclusions drawn from modern editions of historical works that “provide a distorted view of the instrument’s history and repertoire.” To make this point, a revelation appears on the book’s first page, where the authors write, in footnote 2, a stunning bit of information that should shake every trombonist to the core:
“. . . the trombone writing of Giovanni Gabrieli is often presented as typical of the time around 1600; taken from modern editions, the corresponding musical examples, replete with sixteenth-note and thirty-second-note passages, depict note values that have been halved in duple time, and quartered in triple time. (In fact, Gabrieli rarely wrote values smaller than eighth notes in his dedicated trombone parts.) And to demonstrate the supposed equal level of trombone technique, these reduced-note-value passages are then often compared with passages from the works of Dario Castello, who not long after Gabrieli’s death, actually did write sixteenth and thirty-second passages for the trombone.”
Dante did not include a circle in Hell for uncritical music editors and catalogers, but his Inferno might have placed them somewhere between circles six (heresy) and eight (fraud) while the authors of The Early Trombone rise to Paradiso.
The book is divided into three main sections: Instrumental Concerted Solo Music (concertos for solo trombone accompanied by other instruments; it’s there we find familiar works from Albrechtsberger, Michael Haydn, Leopold Mozart, and Wagenseil), Instrumental Music (where trombone is one among several instruments in an ensemble, including works for solo trombone with keyboard/continuo accompaniment like Giovanni Cesare’s La Hieronyma—footnote 3 points readers to Weiner’s fine article, “Giovani Martino Cesare and his Editors,” Historic Brass Society Journal 3 (1991)—and Tiburtio Massaino’s Canzon Trigesimaterza for eight trombones with organ), and Vocal Music. It is this last section that is the longest and therein lies particularly ripe fruit that has been overlooked for centuries. For example, there are 30 pages of works—with approximately a dozen per page—that include a trombone or trombones by Antonia Caldara (b. Venice ?1671; d. Vienna, 1736), and 52 pages of works by the aforementioned Georg Reutter the Younger (b. Vienna, 1708; d. Vienna, 1772). Who knew? Well, now we know, and thanks to the authors, we can locate many of them and work to bring them to audiences.
The instrumental music sections are of particular interest to trombonists looking for new material—“new” as in, “not the same old stuff that’s played all the time”—to include on recitals and other concerts. There, I discovered an entry for a March Lentement, a version of the Dead March from Samson by George Frideric Handel, probably scored for an ensemble of three trombones and timpani. The Catalogue referred me to its bibliography where I was led to Donald Burrows’ article, “Handel, the Dead March and a newly identified trombone movement,” which appeared in Early Music, Vol. 18, No. 3 (1990). In a few minutes, I found the article—which includes images of the music—in an online database and now I have some more reading and discovering to do. This is precisely the kind of thing that good researchers do: they discover and report information, and then lead readers down a breadcrumb trail to learn more. The book’s eighteen page bibliography helps readers do just that.
The Early Trombone also offers tantalizing “what ifs.” There are many works that have a sobering source: “Lost.” Among these are 6 Divertimenti à 4 verschiedene Instrumenten als violin, clarino, corno, flautotranv, fagotto, trombone, viola, violoncello, etc. by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As the authors note, these works are “listed in a catalogue of Mozart’s works compiled in 1768 by Leopold Mozart” but the music has not surfaced. Then there are 12 Concerti for trombone by Gotthard Anton Stolle (b. Kunnersdorf, 1739; d. Prague, 1814). The composer was a virtuoso trombonist, but these works have, for now, disappeared. Unlike the many priceless musical instruments—including several early trombones—that I saw several years ago in the back rooms of the Berlin Musikinstrumenten-Museum, pancaked flat in boxes and labeled, Kriegsverluste, or “lost in the war,” we can hold out hope that these lost works that include trombone might someday be rediscovered and resurrected for today’s players and audiences.
After holding The Early Trombone in my hands for many hours, with sticky notes, tabs, penciled comments, and bookmarks throughout its pages, I am happy to report that this 1½” thick, 3½ pound paperback tome remains as fresh today as the day I first opened it. Despite being left open on my desk for long periods and carried around on numerous trips, the binding remains strong and firm. Once one gets familiar with how the book is laid out, it is easy to follow detailed, copious information for each composition. I found myself constantly turning pages back and forth between an entry, the list of source institutions, and the bibliography, then attacking my computer to find referenced resources. The text is clean and clear, and the indexes of composers and text incipits are helpful for locating information without having to hunt through a sea of pages. Also, the decision to put a reproduction of Musicians Loft by Reinhold Timm (c. 1620) on the cover was inspired. With its two trombonists playing over the frame of the painting, Timm’s work makes me smile. It is a thing of beauty that is infused with information about early musical instruments, and its place on the book’s cover ensures that I keep it in view on a table in my office rather than filed away on a shelf.
While one can certainly sit down and read it from cover to cover, The Early Trombone: A Catalogue of Music, presents itself to each individual in their own way. With a computer nearby, pencil and pad in hand, and as much time as you have to spare, trombonists will be rewarded for acquiring this superb volume, a book that sets a standard for catalogs of music and which will help and inspire us for years to come. Howard T. Weiner, Charlotte A. Leonard, and D. Linda Pearse have put together an outstanding book that should be part of every trombonist’s library. Simply stated, The Early Trombone: A Catalogue of Music is one of the most important contributions to our knowledge base of the trombone to ever appear in print. Highly recommended.
Review Published May 3, 2025