Augsburg, second only to Trier among Germany’s oldest cities, has been the site of considerable trombone activity since the trombone’s beginnings in the 15th century. A painting of the Augsburg Cathedral that I recently added to the Trombone History Timeline…
alta ensemble
Early Trombone and the Dance
I recently found the below video, showing a number of different dances in which the trombone serves as a member of what is commonly called the alta capella. Below the video I have added a selection of entries and pictures…
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…
Wedding Bells: Trombone in Wedding Celebrations
I just added another image to the 19th century timeline (2nd half), another depiction of a wedding celebration that includes trombone (c. 1885, shown below). Wedding celebrations constitute a fairly common theme in trombone history, with a total of 14…
Earliest Depiction of Black Trombonist?
Today I added a color version of the below image, along with a nice detail of the musicians, to the 16th century timeline. An apt example of the trombone in the wind band tradition (alta ensemble, waits, pifferi, Stadtpfeifer), it…
Trombone History: Trombone with 16th Century Wind Band
Added color version of Pinturicchio’s fresco (see below) to the 16th Century Trombone History Timeline. The painting provides one of the earliest examples of trombone iconography showing the instrument in a wind band setting (called pifferi in Italy). The color version…
Trombone History: Trombone in Peruvian Procession
After a lot of searching, I found a much better reproduction of the Peruvian painting shown below (public domain; Wuffarden pl. 14). The trombonist is on the far left in the larger image. In this reproduction you can see the…
Trombone History: 16th Century Paintings of Trombonists
Added several new images to the 16th Century of the Trombone History Timeline. They include, respectively, a detail and 2 paintings by Caravaggio (the less-famous Caravaggio, sometimes known as Polidoro Caldara) (c. 1520, Rome, Italy), as well as a detail…