Review

Karl Stefaniszin
20 Etudes for Bass Trombone: (or Trombone with f-attachment)

Arranged by Jörg Richter


Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2024
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Primary Genre: Study Material - etude

For 75 years, bass trombonists have been familiar with 20 Etudes for Bass Trombone by Karl Stephanovsky. Editions of the etudes were published in Russia around 1950 and again in 1961, and Keith Brown’s edition for International Music Company (1964) is still in print and widely used today. It is surprising that the composer of such a popular book of etudes remains a bit of a mystery. Over the years, players have looked in vain for information about Stephanovsky (whose name has also been rendered as Stefanovskiĭ), and a new edition of the 20 Etudes has come to market that poses a novel answer to why we can’t seem to discover who he was.

Jörg Richter’s teacher, Werner Beyer (who was bass trombonist with Staatskapelle Dresden from 1951 to 1985), gave Richter a copy of handwritten etudes for bass trombone that had the inscription, “Etüden für Baßposaune von Karl Stefaniszin, Soloposaunist Staatsoper Berlin.” Stefaniszin held his position from 1924 to 1956, and the etudes that Beyer gave to Richter are none other than the 20 Etudes of Karl Stephanovsky. Richter credits Stefaniszin as the composer of the etudes, arguing that Stephanovsky and Stefaniszin are the same person, and for three quarters of a century, the wrong name has been attached to the studies, possibly due to a transcription error.

I am not convinced that Stefaniszin is the author of these etudes. Mistaking one name for another seems unlikely given the obvious differences in the ending of the names “Stephanovsky” (two syllables, “ovsky” or “ovskiĭ”) and “Stefaniszin” (one syllable, “szin,” pronounced “sin”). Before the invention of the photocopy machine and scanners, players frequently hand copied music written by others. It may be that Stefaniszin simply copied out Stephanovsky’s etudes, and Stefaniszin wrote his name on his copy as an indication of his ownership of the document.

However, a more important issue is at play here that renders the authorship question moot: Stephanovsky did not compose most of the etudes that appear in his 20 Etudes. In 1927, Fritz Werner published 40 Etüden für trompete oder cornet à piston (Rühle & Wendling, Wiesbaden). Whoever Stephanovsky was, he appropriated 15 of Werner’s trumpet etudes and incorporated them into a book of bass trombone etudes under Stephanovsky’s own name. In 1965, Werner’s trumpet etudes were edited for trombone by Keith Brown, who edited and published them in 1965 with International Music Company as 38 Studies. Brown’s edition did not include Werner’s etudes 23 and 31. Thus, there is at least dual authorship of the etudes in Stephanovsky’s book. The origin of the other five etudes in Stephanovsky’s 20 Etudes is not known, whether from his own hand, or by another composer (or composers).

Richter’s new edition of the 20 Etudes preserves the order and key of the Russian editions of Stephanovsky’s 20 Etudes(Keith Brown’s edition orders the etudes differently). Articulations differ between the Russian, Brown, and Richter editions, but for all intents and purposes, the music is identical in all publications, and players are urged to practice the etudes in a variety of articulative patterns. There are a number of careless errors in this Cherry Classics edition. There is a missing bar line in etude 3, there is errant beaming in the fifth measure of etude 15, there are two spelling errors on the second page of the introduction (“basics” instead of “basic,” and Richter’s name is spelled incorrectly), and the time signature is missing in etude 18. There are also more than a few instances where the layout is clunky (the last measure of etude 13 spans an entire line, and odd looking slurs are common, a common product of default settings on music writing programs). It is curious there is a blank page after etude 12 since it awkwardly necessitates page turns on several subsequent etudes; a blank page after etude 15 instead would have solved that problem. This new publication is also nearly twice as expensive as Brown’s edition, although Cherry Classic editions have the advantage of being available in both print and as a PDF.

With its preponderance of etudes based on arpeggiated figures, 20 Etudes is useful for helping players understand and get around their instruments better. That all but two etudes are in flat keys is self-limiting, but other books of similarly structured etudes fill that gap. A copy of 20 Etudes should be in every bass trombonist’s library.