1846

Hector Berlioz writes, “…there are eminent composers who are ignorant of the most rudimentary part of the science, the range of many of the instruments….Of the range of brass instruments and the trombone in particular they have only the most shadowy notion; you can see this from the way most modern scores, just as in the old days, cling to the middle register of these instruments and avoid taking them high or low, simply because the composer, not knowing their exact compass, is afraid of overstepping it” (Berlioz-Carnes 439).