1902-03

Arnold Schoenberg, Pelléas und Mélisande, op. 5 calls for 5 trombones. Schoenberg indicates glissando for trombones—one of the earliest such indications in Western music (the earliest is probably Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada (1892). Schoenberg feels it necessary to add the following explanatory footnote: “The glissando on the trombone is executed as follows: the note E is established by the lips as the lowest partial of the sixth draw [7th position] and then the slide is shifted through all the positions in such a way that the chromatic intervals, as well as the quarter-tone, eighth-tone and smaller intervals in between, are clearly heard, as in the glissando of string instruments” (Gregory 67).