Trombone for Rossini Stabat Mater

[stephenivany]

Hey all,

I am curious as to what trombone should be used for a Rossini Stabat Mater. It was premiered in 1842 in Paris at A430. I have found lots of German models around this time frame, but I know very little about what was being used in France.

The second part of this question is, without spending thousands of dollars on a historical instrument, what is an appropriate instrument to play at 430 for this piece?

Thanks in advance!

SI

[BGuttman]

Will the rest of the orchestra be playing at A=430? No sense transposing if you are the only one doing so.

As to size of the instrument, it probably was relatively small bore; maybe the size of a Conn 2H. Trombones with triggers were not terribly common at the time either. Again, will you be the only one "downsizing"? If the rest of the orchestra is using modern instruments you should too.

[heinzgries]

small bores from courtois or Lecomte

http://www.williampetit.com/16/trombone ... ecomte.htm
https://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet ... E2%99%AD--

[Basbasun]

Beautiful horns heingries!

OP, Is the orhestra playing on historic instruments and tuning to 430? Then it is funny that they ask you to play, usually orchestras like that ask a specialist on old instruments. I guess they play on modern instruments in 440.
A modern trombone does not work at 430. Think of Beethoven 5, there are hundreds of recordings with modern instruments in 440 or 442. I have been playing Beethoven many time with modern trombone in 442.

[heinzgries]

Beautiful horns heingries!

The same kind of trombones was made by Hawkes & son in England. I have one from 1895 which
is still playable. At the end of the 19 th century, english and france trombones were very small
bore with a small bell. At this time only the germans had built trombones with a big bell diameter.
I love the small english and france version with the nice engraving.

[LeTromboniste]

What was used in France at the time: very tiny Bb trombones, nothing like German instruments of the same period. Closer to a sackbut than to a modern trombone, really

Here is a French trombone from ca. 1810. Notice the flare of the bell, or lack thereof. The bell is 119mm or 4,685 inches!
https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/reco ... Riedlocker

What HIP players now typically use for French romantic repertoire is Courtois "peashooters" and similar trombones like that Lecomte above (which is a very ornamented one, usually they are much more plain). Those are actually a later design which emerged around the 1860s and are significantly larger (even though they are still very small by modern standards, similar to Conn 2H in proportions but with thinner, lighter metal), also they are most of the time mass produced factory products as opposed to the earlier ones that are pre-industrial, works of craftsmen. So technically not the most accurate for playing earlier music, but because originals from the turn of the 20th century are so readily available and usually quite cheap (and the design essentially didn't change between the 1860s and 1930s so it doesn't matter much if your original is from 1875 or 1925) and there isn't enough work on this repertoire to justify buying more expensive instruments, there hasn't been a market for modern replicas of the earlier, smaller ones yet (of which far fewer survive and many are in museums). That might change once there starts being more work that justifies for us to buy them and thus for the makers to make them.

In terms of pitch, it was around 430 in Paris, but could probably vary quite a bit throughout France . It was a half step higher in England, at 452. My own Courtois from around 1890 has an extremely long tuning slide; it plays around 450 with the slide all the way in and around 425 with the slide all the way out. With a smaller mouthpiece like they used, that range might be actually a bit higher.

They used absolutely tiny mouthpieces, by the way, typically smaller than the smallest modern alto mouthpieces (!) with cups that are almost completely conical and no defined throat. I think the one that came with my instrument is around 21.5mm (for comparison, a Bach 5G is 25.5, a 12C is 24.5 and a 22C is just under 24mm)