Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the air column inside the instrument to vibrate. Nearly all trombones use a telescoping slide mechanism to alter the pitch instead of the valves used by other brass instruments. The valve trombone is an exception, using three valves similar to those on a trumpet, and the superbone has valves and a slide.
The word trombone derives from Italian tromba and -one, so the name means. The trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like the trumpet, in contrast to the more conical brass instruments like the cornet, the flugelhorn, the baritone, and the euphonium. The two most frequently encountered variants are the tenor trombone and bass trombone; when the word trombone is mentioned alone; it is mostly taken to mean the tenor model. These are treated as non-transposing instruments, reading at concert pitch in bass clef, with higher notes sometimes being notated in tenor clef. They are pitched in B, an octave below the B trumpet and an octave above the B contrabass tuba. The once common E alto trombone became less common as improvements in technique extended the upper range of the tenor, but it is regaining popularity for its lighter sonority. In British brass-band music the tenor trombone is treated as a B transposing instrument, written in treble clef, and the alto trombone is written at concert pitch, usually in alto clef.
A person who plays the trombone is called a trombonist or trombone player.
History
Etymology
Trombone comes from the Italian word tromba plus the suffix -one, meaning.During the Renaissance, the equivalent English term was sackbut. The word first appears in court records in 1495 as shakbusshe. Shakbusshe is similar to sacabuche, attested in Spain as early as 1478. The French equivalent saqueboute appears in 1466.
The German Posaune long predates the invention of the slide and could refer to a natural trumpet as late as the early fifteenth century.
Origin
The sackbut appeared in the 15th century and was used extensively across Europe, declining in most places by the mid to late 17th century. It was used in outdoor events, in concert, and in liturgical settings. Its principal role was as the contratenor part in a dance band. It was also used, along with shawms, in bands sponsored by towns and courts. Trumpeters and trombonists were employed in German city-states to stand watch in the city towers and herald the arrival of important people to the city, an activity that signified wealth and strength in 16th-century German cities. These heralding trombonists were often viewed separately from the more skilled trombonists who played in groups such as the alta capella wind ensembles and the first orchestral ensembles, which performed in religious settings such as St Mark's Basilica in Venice in the early 17th century. The 17th-century trombone had slightly smaller dimensions than a modern trombone, with a bell that was more conical and less flared. Modern period performers use the term "sackbut" to distinguish this earlier version of the trombone from the modern instrument.Composers who wrote for trombone during this period include Claudio Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, Giovanni Gabrieli and his uncle Andrea Gabrieli. The trombone doubled voice parts in sacred works, but there are also solo pieces written for trombone in the early 17th century.
When the sackbut returned to common use in England in the 18th century, Italian music was so influential that the instrument became known by its Italian name, "trombone". Its name remained constant in Italy and in Germany.
During the later Baroque period, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel used trombones on a few occasions. Bach called for a tromba di tirarsi, which may have been a form of the closely related slide trumpet, to double the cantus firmus in some liturgical cantatas. He also employed a choir of four trombones to double the chorus in three of his cantatas. Because of the relative scarcity of trombones, their solo parts were generally interchangeable with other instruments.
Classical period
The construction of the trombone did not change very much between the Baroque and Classical period, but the bell became slightly more flared. Christoph Willibald Gluck was the first major composer to use the trombone in an opera overture, in the opera Alceste . He also used it in the operas Orfeo ed Euridice, Iphigénie en Tauride , and Echo et Narcisse.Early Classical composers occasionally included concertante movements with alto trombone as a solo instrument in divertimenti and serenades; these movements are often extracted from the multi-movement works and performed as standalone alto trombone concerti. Examples include the Serenade in E by Leopold Mozart and Divertimento in D major by Michael Haydn. The earliest known independent trombone concerto is probably the Concerto for Alto Trombone and Strings in B by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger.
Mozart used the trombone in operas and in sacred music. The prominent solo part in the Tuba Mirum section of his Requiem became a staple audition piece for the instrument. Aside from solo parts, Mozart's orchestration usually features a trio of alto, tenor and bass trombones, doubling the respective voices in the choir. The earliest known symphony featuring a trombone section is Symphony in C minor by Anton Zimmermann. The date is uncertain but it is most probably from the peak of the composer's activity in the 1770s. The earliest confident date for introducing the trombone to the symphony is therefore Zimmermann's death in 1781.
Transition to Romantic period
Symphony in E by Swedish composer Joachim Nicolas Eggert features an independent trombone part. Ludwig van Beethoven is sometimes mistakenly credited with the trombone's introduction into the orchestra, having used it shortly afterwards in his Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Symphony No. 6 in F major, and Symphony No. 9.Romantic period
19th-century orchestras
Trombones were included in operas, symphonies, and other compositions by Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Franz Berwald, Charles Gounod, Franz Liszt, Gioacchino Rossini, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Giuseppe Verdi, and Richard Wagner, and others.The trombone trio was combined with one or two cornetts during the Renaissance and early Baroque periods. The replacement of cornetts with oboes and clarinets did not change the trombone's role as a support to the alto, tenor, and bass voices of the chorus, whose moving harmonic lines were more difficult to pick out than the melodic soprano line. The introduction of trombones into the orchestra allied them more closely with trumpets, and soon a tenor trombone replaced the alto. The Germans and Austrians kept alto trombone somewhat longer than the French, who preferred a section of three tenor trombones until after the Second World War. In other countries, the trio of two tenor trombones and one bass became standard by about the mid-19th century.
Trombonists were employed less by court orchestras and cathedrals, who had been providing the instruments. Military musicians were provided with instruments, and instruments like the long F or E bass trombone remained in military use until around the First World War. Orchestral musicians adopted the tenor trombone, as it could generally play any of the three trombone parts in orchestral scores.
Valve trombones in the mid-19th century did little to alter the make-up of the orchestral trombone section. While its use declined in German and French orchestras, the valve trombone remained popular in some countries, including Italy and Bohemia, almost to the exclusion of the slide instrument. Composers such as Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Bedřich Smetana, and Antonín Dvořák scored for a valve trombone section.
As the ophicleide or the tuba was added to the orchestra during the 19th century, bass trombone parts were scored in a higher register than previously. The bass trombone regained some independence in the early 20th century. Experiments with the trombone section included Richard Wagner's addition of a contrabass trombone in Der Ring des Nibelungen and Gustav Mahler's and Richard Strauss' addition of a second bass trombone to the usual trio of two tenors and one bass. The majority of orchestral works are still scored for the usual mid- to late-19th-century low brass section of two tenor trombones, one bass trombone, and one tuba.