Blog
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Trombone History: 16th Century Angel-Trombonist
Added the following image and caption to the 16th century timeline–yet another example of an angel-trombonist, this time going solo. The engraving probably originates from Germany.
c. 1570—An engraving by Franz Ignaz Brun from the Nine Muses series features an angel-musicia...
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Trombonist-Panhandler in 19th Century France
Added the below image and caption to the 19th century timeline (2nd half). It is not known whether the trombonist fared any better than Joshua Bell did recently in the NY subway, or whether the “poor dog” is in reference to the trombonist or the actual canine.
1854—Paris, F...
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Trombone Saves Man's Life
Just added this touching story to the 19th century timeline (2nd half):
1875—New York: Harper’s Magazine publishes a humorous fictional piece, “The Story of a Trombone,” with illustrations by Charles Reinhardt. The story is about a man who lives below a French trombonist...
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Bassoonist Does Battle
Another off-topic post, again about an image that I couldn’t pass up from Cassin-Scott and Fabb’s Military Bands and Their Uniforms (London: Blandford Press, 1978): We occasionally hear stories about military musicians pressed into actual combat situations. This picture, a 19th...
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Bandmaster Cigarettes--A Different Era
This is off-topic, but I came across this authentic cigarette advertisement from c. 1900 in Cassin-Scott and Fabb’s Military Bands and Their Uniforms (London: Blandford Press, 1978, p. 93) (see below image; public domain). There are several things here that make you scratch you...
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Trombone History: Pair of Early Circus Posters
I continue to add to the 19th century timeline (2nd half). Over the weekend I added a pair of circus posters, both of them highlighting musicians. The first one, from Ringling Brothers, shows a large band with 10 trombones. The second, from Barnum & Bailey, features a small clo...
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Trombone History: Au Conservatoire
Added the below image, a depiction of the trombone studio of the Paris Conservatoire in 1886, to the 19th Century timeline (2nd half). The image, originally from the French periodical L’Illustration, is a drawing by Paul Renouard titled Au conservatoire: Classe de trombone, ...
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Milan: Fashion, Opera, and Trombone?
Milan is a city known for both high fashion and opera (home of Giuseppe Verdi and La Scala opera house). But trombone? I recently added a number of entries centering around Milan to the Trombone History Timeline, revealing a fairly active trombone performance tradition in that...
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Elite Female Brass Band
Yesterday I added the below images and entry in the 20th century trombone history timeline. The detail of the poster only shows one trombonist, and the full image is hard to see, but there are actually two trombonists included.
The creation of numerous “Damen Blasorchester” a...
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This, That, or the Other: Labeling in Early Music
I just finished adding nearly 40 new entries to the 17th century (2nd half) timeline from Charlotte Leonard’s very thorough “The Role of the Trombone and its Affekt in the Lutheran Church Music of Seventeenth Century Saxony and Thuringia: The Mid- and Late Seventeenth Century...
