Les journées de cuivres anciens (Early Brass Days), the Historic Brass Society conference at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, attracted performers, scholars, educators, and students of early brass from various parts of Europe and the United States. Brass Scholarship in Review provides a record of the scholarly side of the conference, including reports on roundtable discussions as well as individual papers from leading authorities on early brass. Articles cover a wide range of interests, from the historical to the technical, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. There are articles on such diverse topics as early hunting horn signals, trumpeters in Renaissance Parma, early recordings, trumpet acoustics, and the characteristics of metals used in early instrument manufacture. The volume is particularly rich in nineteenth-century topics, including ground-breaking work on Adolph Sax as leader of the banda of the Paris Opéra and recent discoveries relating to the Gautrot firm of instrument makers.

The first study of the performance practice, repertoire and context of the modern 'brass ensemble' in the musical world.

In the first major book devoted to the trumpet in more than two decades, John Wallace and Alexander McGrattan trace the surprising evolution and colorful performance history of one of the world's oldest instruments. They chart the introduction of the trumpet and its family into art music, and its rise to prominence as a solo instrument, from the Baroque "golden age," through the advent of valved brass instruments in the nineteenth century, and the trumpet's renaissance in the jazz age. The authors offer abundant insights into the trumpet's repertoire, with detailed analyses of works by Haydn, Handel, and Bach, and fresh material on the importance of jazz and influential jazz trumpeters for the reemergence of the trumpet as a solo instrument in classical music today. Wallace and McGrattan draw on deep research, lifetimes of experience in performing and teaching the trumpet in its various forms, and numerous interviews to illuminate the trumpet's history, music, and players. Copiously illustrated with photographs, facsimiles, and music examples throughout, The Trumpet will enlighten and fascinate all performers and enthusiasts [Publisher description].

The Moravians, or Bohemian Brethren, early Protestants who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the eighteenth century, brought a musical repertoire that included hymns, sacred vocal works accompanied by chamber orchestra, and instrumental music by the best-known European composers of the day. Moravian composers -- mostly pastors and teachers trained in the styles and genres of the Haydn-Mozart era -- crafted thousands of compositions for worship, and copied and collected thousands of instrumental works for recreation and instruction. The book's chapters examine sacred and secular works, both for instruments -- including piano solo -- and for voices. The Music of the Moravian Church demonstrates the varied roles that music played in one of America's most distinctive ethno-cultural populations, and presents many distinctive pieces that performers and audiences continue to find rewarding. Contributors: Alice M. Caldwell, C. Daniel Crews, Lou Carol Fix, Pauline M. Fox, Albert H. Frank, Nola Reed Knouse, Laurence Libin, Paul M. Peucker, and Jewel A. Smith. Nola Reed Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation since 1994, is active as a flautist, composer, and arranger. She is the editor of The Collected Wind Music of David Moritz Michael.

This volume brings together leading voices from the new wave of research on musical instruments to consider how we can connect the material aspects of instruments with their social function, approaches that have been otherwise too frequently separated in musical scholarship. Shaping Sound and Society: The Cultural Study of Musical Instruments locates the instruments at the centre of cultural interactions. With contributions from ten scholars spanning a variety of methodologies and a wide range of both contemporary and historic music cultures, the volume is divided into three sections. Contributors discuss the relationships between makers, performers, and their local communities; the different meanings that instruments accrue as they travel over time and place; and the manner in which instruments throw new light on historic music cultures. Alongside the scholarly chapters, the volume also includes a selection of shorter interludes based on interviews with makers of comparatively new instruments, offering further insights into the process of musical instrument innovation. An essential read for students and academics in the fields of music and ethnomusicology, this volume will also interest anyone looking to understand how the cultural interaction of musical instruments is deeply informed and influenced by social, technological, and cultural change.

This book addresses key questions about the materials used for the wind instruments of classical symphony orchestra such as flutes, clarinets, saxophones, oboes, bassoons and pipe organs. The content of this book is structured into four parts. Part 1- Description of materials for wind instruments deals with wood species and materials for reeds used for making clarinet, oboe and bassoon- and, with metallic materials and alloys for - horn, trumpet, trombone, etc. Auxiliary materials associated with the manufacturing of wind instruments are felt, cork, leather and parchment. Part 2- Basic acoustics of wind instruments, in which are presented succinctly, some pertinent aspects related to the physics of the resonant air column. An important aspect discussed is related to the effect of wall material on the vibration modes of the walls of wind instruments. The methods for measuring the acoustical properties of wind instruments are presented. Part 3- Manufacturing of wind instruments, describes the technology used in manufacturing metallic tubes and pipes made of wood. Part 4 - The durability and degradation of materials addresses data about methods for cleaning wind instruments, studies factors producing degradation of organ pipes, describes methods of conservation and restoration of brass instruments and of historical pipe organs. Finally, the properties of marble are described, being the only one nondegradable and sustainable material used for pipes for organs.

This study of brass chamber music in lyceum and chautauqua fills a lacuna in brass history. It explores the forgotten phenomenon of the many chamber brass ensembles that entertained millions of Americans from coast to coast from 1877 to 1939 and presents histories of sixty-one ensembles that performed music for brass trio, brass quartet, brass quintet, and brass sextet for lyceum and chautauqua audiences. The author also writes about the large repertoire of music for small brass ensembles that he discovered was published in America from 1875 through the 1920s. This First American Chamber Brass School is discussed in one of five overviews of the principal eras in brass chamber music history that form the most comprehensive history of brass chamber music written in fifty years. Paperback.