F bass trombone dates

[AtomicClock]

When and where was the bass trombone in F a standard part of the orchestra? My orchestra is preparing Schulhoff #5, and there is a surprising amount of B naturals in both the 2nd and 3rd parts. I thought F bass had died out by 1939 (and that F tenor was never a thing).

It's possible he never performed the work. Maybe he had to complete it in haste as the Nazis were invading, and skipped the finer points of instruments' extreme ranges?

[stewbones43]

I admit to a large amount of ignorance about F bass trombones but I think that 7th position would produce the B you are talking about. Also the Bb/F trombone had been invented and I would think that a skilled player would be easily able to fake a good low B on a Bb/F tenor.

I now await many responses from those who know much more than I do.

Cheers
Stewbones43

[harrisonreed]

From Wikipedia, take it with a grain of salt:

In 1839 Sattler invented the quartventil (lit. 'fourth valve'), a valve attachment for a B♭ tenor trombone to lower the instrument a fourth into F.[6] Intended to bridge the range gap of the tenor trombone between E2 and B♭1, it was quickly adopted for bass trombone parts, particularly in Germany. These instruments in B♭/F gradually replaced the larger bass trombones in F and E♭ over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries.[7] Late Romantic German composers specifying Tenorbaßposaune in scores intended a B♭/F trombone capable of playing below E2; Arnold Schoenberg called for four in Gurre-Lieder (1911).

Almost no doubt he was writing for something like a large Bb/F trombone in mind, that late into the game.

[BGuttman]

Note that in the early 20th Century there were attachments in F and attachments in E. I have a picture of the Boston Symphony brass section from 1921 where the bass trombone (Leroy Kenfield) has an instrument in Bb/F (very German style) and the 2nd trombone (August Mausebach) has a tenor with an E attachment.

[GabrielRice]

I don't really know the answer, but there seems to have been a perception among some Eastern European composers - Hungarian especially - that bass trombone is an instrument with F as it's fundamental pitch even into the 1970s.

A good example is "A Hundred Bars for Tom Everett" by Andras Szollosy, with many indications of slide positions that suggest F bass.

[Finetales]

Many composers from the early 20th century really didn't understand that a Bb/F trombone doesn't have a low B.

The only example I can think of a composer deliberately omitting that note because they knew it wasn't a real note is the big bass trombone entrance in the 1st movement of Shostakovich 5, where the bass trombone has a quarter rest on the low B that the tuba and basses have.

The most egregious example of low Bs in a Bb/F trombone part I can think of is the 4th tenor trombone part to Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder...there are low Bs all OVER the place. I guess people just assumed that the F attachment could do everything an F bass can do.

[JohnL]

It's not as if the information regarding trombone ranges wasn't readily available. In the 1855 edition of his Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration, Hector Berlioz goes into some detail regarding the range of the Eb alto, Bb tenor, and bass trombones (in G, F, and Eb), specifically talking about the gap just above the pedal notes. He also mentions Adolphe Sax making a Bb tenor trombone an attachment (apparently in Eb) which bridges the gap.

Of course, if they were referencing the original edition from 1844, they'd only find information on the Eb alto, Bb tenor, and Eb bass. Since the Eb bass is chromatic down to A1, B1 should be no problem.

[EdwardSolomon]

The F bass slide trombone was obsolete as an orchestral instrument from much earlier than the 20th century. In German-speaking lands, it had fallen out of use in orchestras from at least the 1840s, in many cases, much earlier still.

As a military and church instrument, it continued to be manufactured into the 20th century. However, the bore of the military and church F bass trombone is significantly smaller than that of the contemporaneous B flat/F bass trombone, so they were not interchangeable. Additionally, there was the problem of pitch standard, as church instruments were often built to a different pitch from orchestral models.

In terms of military use, the F bass trombone fell out of use after WWI. I have not seen any archive photographs or film footage from the 1920s on that show it in use and there are plenty of examples of military bands throughout the Weimar Republic and Third Reich periods.

With regard to the F bass valve trombone, things lie somewhat differently. It was used in Italy, as well as in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czechoslovakia after WWI, though the valve trombone, which had been a favourite of Czech composers such as Smetana, Dvorak, and Janacek, was replaced by the slide trombone some time during the 1920s. There is evidence to show the replacement of the valve trombone professor at the Prague Conservatory by a slide trombone professor.

By the time Schulhoff was writing his Symphony No. 5, there is no question that any F bass trombone of either slide or valve variety was completely obsolete. Indeed, composers such as Richard Strauss had long been demanding of the third and fourth trombones to reach low B and to this end, there were makers who had created B flat/F trombones with replacement valve attachment tuning slides to low E or E flat. B flat/E flat would easily permit the use of low C and B with no trouble at all and was an accepted workaround, though even low C on a German B flat/F trombone is quite easily reached due to the shorter bell and longer slide dimensions, low B by pulling the F attachment tuning slide.

So, to answer the OP's question, there is simply no evidence for the use of the F bass trombone orchestrally - either slide or valve models - by 1938/1939 when Schulhoff's Symphomy No. 5 was written.

[EdwardSolomon]

The most egregious example of low Bs in a Bb/F trombone part I can think of is the 4th tenor trombone part to Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder...there are low Bs all OVER the place. I guess people just assumed that the F attachment could do everything an F bass can do.

This is rather inaccurate. Gurrelieder includes 4 Tenorbaßposaunen. This does not necessarily mean tenor trombones. The lowermost part is simply for a Tenorbaßposaune, which by 1913 was exclusively going to be performed on a B flat/F or B flat/E flat instrument. To reach low B on such a trombone is not a stretch by any means. German trombones are built with shorter bell and longer slide dimensions, making the low C easily reachable and the low B, with the tuning slide pulled or a replacement E flat slide. By 1913, there was most certainly B flat/F trombones in production by several makers that were exclusively designed for the performance of bass trombone parts, built with larger bore and bell dimensions and considered very much as bass trombones.

As a word of warning, one should be very wary of the term Tenorbaßposaune: it means different things at different times. At the very earliest stage in its development by Sattler during the 1830s, it indicates a straight B flat trombone built with the larger bore and bell dimensions of the F bass and capable of covering either tenor or bass trombone parts. After Sattler devised the thumb-valve operated F attachment, it still indicates a B flat trombone with the larger bore and bell dimensions, but can be either straight B flat or B flat/F and still capable of covering either tenor or bass trombone parts. Later in the 19th century, makers such as Penzel, Kruspe, and Heckel build models that are designed with a yet larger bore and bell size and these are conceived exclusively for covering bass trombone parts. (There are even larger bore models designed for the military and for export to Russia, where in both cases the habit is to play them very loudly.) Lastly, in the 20th century, the very confusing term Tenorbaßposaune is replaced by something that more accurately describes the intended use of the instrument: either Quartposaune, indicating a B flat/F tenor trombone, or Baßposaune, indicating a B flat/F bass trombone. When examining the works of any German composer, it is vitally important to have this information in your head and not to simply assume the use of a bass trombone in F because some book somewhere said so.

Almost everything the F bass was capable of could be and was covered by the B flat/F Tenorbaßposaune from its very inception, as numerous articles in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung attest. The newer instrument offered greater dexterity, a more secure and extensive upper range, and was taken up in large numbers during the 1840s. At a time when music critics had been lambasting orchestras where there was no bass trombone and the low notes were taken up an octave (particularly in the overture to Der Freischütz by Weber), the B flat/F trombone was a very welcome addition and was enthusiastically embraced throughout the German-speaking lands. Even Vienna, which had switched to using valve trombones, discarded a 50-year tradition in favour of slide trombones in 1883.

The barest modicum of research would reveal just how popular the B flat/F trombone rapidly became and the odd low B was not at all seen as a handicap, particularly to those to whom anything below E had been denied previously.