Review

Georg Kopprasch
60 Etudes, op.5 and op.6:

Arranged by Benny Sluchin


Paris, , France
Publisher: Éditions Musicales Européennes
Date of Publication: 2000

Primary Genre: Study Material - etude

Benny Sluchin is deserving of much praise for his significant and ongoing contributions to pedagogical literature for trombone. To his Brass Urtext collection he has added his trombone adaptation of the venerable 60 Études op.6 of Kopprasch. He then went a step further and brought out the first trombone adaptation of Kopprasch’s op.5, a companion set of 60 similar but entirely different etudes. 

Georg Kopprasch was a German horn player active during the first three decades of the 19th century. As Sluchin explains in the prefaces, this was a time when horn players tended to specialize in either the high or low register. Thus the original opp. 5 and 6 were intended for the development of high and low players respectively. By using the same transposition for all of the etudes in both sets, Sluchin preserves the distinctive register emphasis of each set. All of the etudes of op.5 are in tenor clef and most of them range up to b-flat1 and c2 and occasionally to d2 and e-flat2 whereas the op.6 set is entirely in bass clef with the upper range never exceeding g1 and often extending downward to the pedal register. All pitches in the trigger and pedal registers have notated upper octave options. In comparison with the familiar Carl Fischer edition, nearly all of the 60 etudes of op.6 are lower by anywhere from a half step to a fourth. All of the etudes in both sets are in flat keys except for one in C, with the majority having a key signature of two flats.

The Carl Fischer two-volume edition of the Sixty Selected Studies has been around longer than most of us have been alive and are therefore easily taken for granted. Re-discovering Kopprasch by way of Sluchin’s edition, along with the sixty “new” studies of op.5, was a revelation for me. For basic technique building, especially in areas of facility and articulation, these studies are outstanding for their concentration and thoroughness. In both sets, slower and more lyrical etudes are interspersed among the faster technical ones, and I find all of them to be of exceptional quality and eminently useful. The prefatory comments in French and English, the same in both books, give good historical information and suggestions for usage. Each book also has a “thematic table” of incipits that is handy for locating specific etudes or etude types. Those of us who are academically inclined will find Sluchin’s scholarly style quite appealing. These fine urtext editions elevate these etudes to a level of respect and prestige of which they are most worthy.

-Arthur Jennings
University of Florida