Brass Timeline: 20th Century
George Belcher (British, 1875 – 1947), I Dream that I Dwelt in Marble Halls (see below; public domain).
Richard Nitsch (Austrian/German 1866–1945), Musician (see below; public domain).
Hans Larwin (Austrian, 1873-1938), Böhmische Musikanten (see below; public domain).
Franz Hecker (1870-1944), Playing the Horn (see below).
Thure Nikolaus Freiherr von Cederström (1843-1924), Hornbläser mit Notenblatt (see below; public domain).
Hornist and composer Henry Chaussier (1854-1914), photographed by Nadar (see below; public domain).
Brazilian band (see below; public domain).
Louis Azema (French, 1876-1963), Joueur d’ophicloïde (see below; public domain).
Arthur Thiele postcard features a quartet of musicians (see below; public domain).
Bingham & Gable Vaudeville act (see below; public domain).
Early-Mid 20th century—Germany/Poland: Paul Stubbe (1874–1950), Mit voller Kraft (With full Power). See below; public domain.
Early-Mid 20th century—Germany/United States: J. Stoll, Making Music (see below; public domain).
Victor Leduc, The Church’s Choir Singing (see below; public domain).
Hermann Kern, Der Posaunist (see below; public domain).
Two brass players (see below; public domain).
F. W. Galpin with serpent, during a lecture he gave as part of the International Loan Exhibition of Musical Instruments and Memorials of Musicians held at the Crystal Palace (see below; public domain).
Henri Perret-Carnot (1859-1948), Le coeur des enfants (see below; public domain).
Lubin de Beauvais (French, 1873-1917), 3 postcards of Parisian buskers. Paris, 1901.
Advertisement for Colman’s Mustard (see below; public domain).
Nuremberg, Germany (see below; public domain).
Gustav Mahler writes the following about his 3rd Symphony in a letter to Richard Strauss: “A motley collection [of players] that is not up to standard could not cope with my work; that I know! Just have a look at the score! At any rate, the first trombone must be outstanding, with a colossal tone and mighty breath! Would not your first trombonist in Berlin, whom I have heard highly praised, be best for this?” (Mahler Correspondence 70).
Moravian trombone ensemble of Lititz.
Happy New Year card (see below; public domain).
Happy Birthday card, chromo-lithograph (see below; public domain).
The Belgian firm of Mahillon produced a piccolo B flat trumpet, developed to assist trumpet players with Bach’s 2nd Brandenburg Concerto and other works intended for clarino trumpet playing.
Postcard (see below; public domain).
After this date, postcard (see below; public domain).
Sudrophone trombone, from catalog of F. Sudre (see below; public domain).
George Case, Professor of Trombone at the Royal College of Music, says the following in response to F. W. Galpin’s famous article on the sackbut: “I am afraid that nowadays there is no chance of a return to what Mr. Galpin supposes was the tone of the sackbut in the 16th century, as, in the last hundred years, although the orchestras have doubled, the number of trombones remaining the same, the players are expected to blow loud enough to dominate the whole orchestra. I wish to point out that nothing is more unfair, or betrays ignorance of the facts in a greater degree, than the custom that obtains in this country of blaming the trombone-players, when the real offenders are to be found among the conductors or composers” (Case, Correspondence).
Moravian trombone choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Hermann Kern (Austrian, 1839-1912), Pause des Jagdhornbläsers (see below; public domain).
Orquesta Típica Enrique Peña Sanchez (see below; public domain).
Happy New Year postcard (see below; public domain).
Christmas greeting card (see below; public domain).
St. Petersburg, Russia: Rain catcher tuba from Julius Heinrich Zimmermann catalog (see below; public domain).
Illustration by for the Femmes instruments issue of the magazine Le Frou-Frou of September 26, 1908 (see below; public domain).
A postcard features a clown band at Luna Park, an amusement park in Seattle from 1907 to 1913. The postcard is labeled “LA. SOUSA CLOWN BAND/SEATTLE, WASH/SEASON—1909” (see below image; public domain) (Seattle Municipal Archives).
Amorosa Brass Sextet (see below; public domain).
1910—Geißlingen (Baden-Württemberg), Germany
A group of brass players gathered to play a wedding.
Robert Frank-Kraus (German, 1893-1950), Blasmusiker (see below).
Robert Frank-Krauss (German, 1893-1950), Alterer Musiker in Dachauer Tracht. See below; public domain.
Quartet (see below; public domain).
“Police tuba players—Halt or We’ll Toot!” from the Grantham Bain Collection (see below; public domain).
Tuba player using an aerophor. “An aerophor (sometimes spelled aerophore, aerophon, or aerophone) is a device designed to provide an auxiliary breath supply to aid players of wind instruments in performing extended notes or passages. It was invented in 1912 by Bernard Samuels, a Dutch flautist in the Court Theatre of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin” (see below; public domain).
Louis Raemaekers (Dutch, 1869–1956), War Loan Music (see below; public domain).
Leslie Thrasher, cover of Popular Magazine (see below; public domain).
Alan Stephens Foster (1892-1934), Memorial Day Celebration (see below; public domain).
Real-photo postcard of jazz trombonist Zue Robertson (see below; public domain).
King Carter Jazzing Orchestra (see below; public domain).
Anonymous, Portrait of an unknown girl with a sousaphone in a theatre (see below; public domain).
Eugene Reiche, probably in St. Petersburg (see below; public domain).
Boston Symphony Brass Section (see below; public domain).
New York, New York. Cover of Collier’s.
Albert Reich (1881-1942), Der alternde Posaunist am Tisch (The Aging Trombonist at the Table). see below; public domain.
Glenn Miller (see below; public domain).
Boston Symphony Brass Section (see below; public domain).
Hanns Zethmeyer, Posaunenbläser (see below; public domain).
Greeting card (see below; public domain).
Postcard of a trio (see below; public domain).
Trombone class at Paris Conservatory; Henri Couillaud, Professor (see below; public domain).
Trombone player in the tower of the Town Hall, Gdansk Carillon. Photo: Atelier Gottheil & Sohn, glass negative from the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk.
Postcart with gnomes (see below; public domain).
Jack Teagarden postcard (see below; public domain).
Caricature of Horn Player (see below)
Vladislav Blazhevich (1881-1942), teaching at Moscow Conservatory (see below).
Norman Rockwell’s The Trumpeter appears on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post (see below).
Frank Wright with an Ophicleide (see below; public domain).
Lambert & Butler’s cigarette card. “London Characters: The Cornet Player” (see below; public domain).
New York, New York (see below; public domain).
Richard Strauss composed his Second Concerto for Horn
Postcard (see below; public domain).
Concertgebouw. Wagner tubas (see below)
Collector Adam Carse (ophicleide) and conductor Malcolm Sargent (Russian bassoon) pose at the Horniman Museum (see below).
Hans Kerner (Austrian, b. 1919), The Music Maker (see below; public domain).
American bass trombonists began experimenting with adding a second rotor valve to eventually produce the standard double trigger bass trombone.
British horn virtuoso Dennis Brain brought the horn to the forefront before a fatal auto accident cut his career short.
French trumpeter Maurice André began to popularize solo trumpet music
Advertisement for Conn trombones (see below).
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his Concerto in F Minor for Bass Tuba and Orchestra for Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Jimmy Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story (see below).
John Philip Falter, Jam Session. Saturday Evening Post (see below).
Louis Armstrong in Amsterdam (see below; public domain).
John Philip Falter, Jamming with Dad. Saturday Evening Post (see below).
In the context of a discussion about instrumentation, Igor Stravinsky says, “What instruments do I like? I wish there were more good players for the bass clarinet and the contra-bass clarinet, for the alto trombone (of my Threni and Berg’s Altenberg Lieder), for the guitar, the mandoline and the cymbalom” (Stravinsky and Craft 31).
Hans Hanke (Austrian, 1923-), Wandering Musicians series (see below).
Miles Davis performing in Antibes, France (see below; public domain).
Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg records the album The Virtuoso Trombone. Around that time he becomes possibly the first trombonist to sustain a career exclusively as a soloist.
Sean Dawson (b. 1964), Comforting Baby (see below)
