1840—Stuttgart, Germany

Jean-George Kastner, the French composer and theorist, reportedly hears a chorale played each day from a balcony by a quartet consisting of cornett, alto trombone, tenor trombone, and bass trombone: “In 1840, while I was in Stuttgart, I heard every day a concert of sacred music performed by four musicians who, according to custom, climbed the balcony of the tower to play a chorale, of which the first voice was played by the cornett, and the others by alto, tenor, and bass trombones” (Kastner, Danses des morts 213). Kastner specifically describes the alto trombone one year earlier in his Traité Général d’Instrumentation as an instrument pitched in E-flat (see 1837, above).*