1844—Paris, France

Jean-Georges Kastner, the French composer and theorist, writes a Supplement to his Traité Général d’Instrumentation.

As in the original treatise, Kastner places the alto trombone clearly in the E-flat orbit: “In general, in France, the first position of the alto trombone provides the following notes [E-flat harmonic series], but one finds others that feature a first position that is a tone higher [F harmonic series], and consequently all the degrees in the same proportion” (see below image; public domain; p. 40).

Likewise, Kastner places the valve alto trombone in E-flat and F (p. 42). Kastner also mentions that, unfortunately, the alto is much more common in Germany than in France: “The alto trombone is in general use in Germany, but is only found in France in very few orchestras, which is very unfortunate because the tenor trombone may not play as high, and composers are deprived of using [notated B-F], notes that would benefit them greatly” (p. 40). He reiterates on the following page that this absence of alto trombone is a negative: “And the alto trombone and bass trombone, which are widespread in Germany, are most unusual in France. It is understood that this is a great disadvantage for our composers” (p. 41). Finally, he adds that, in general, 3 tenor trombones are used in French trombone sections, reiterating that this is negative (difficulty/embarrassment): “In general, French composers use only tenor trombone, for which they write in three parts, but they often continue to indicate by the designations of alto, tenor, and bass, which has given rise to some singular difficulty [embarras], especially in the bass part” (p. 41).