“School” of trombone playing as a means of developing European trombone art of the 19th century

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The historical context of the influence of trombone players on the performance style of European schools has not yet been studied despite the widespread use of method books “The schools of trombone playing” by all musicians, from amateurs to professionals. However, in the past, leading teachers and methodologists mainly from conservatories presented the performance trends of that time and developed new ones in their works, which guided the further development of the future generations’ performers. Recent research and publications. The issue of method books and their influence on European trombone schools was actively studied at the end of the 20th century (Guion, 1988; Lapie, 1995; Weiner, 1993, 1995, 1999 a, b). In this context, an important place belongs to the article “Slide trombone training and method books in France (1794–1960)” (Sluchin & Lapie, 1997), which contains a lot of information about method books of that period, the evolution of European trombone schools, the contribution of method books authors to the development of trombone playing in the nineteenth century and a detailed analysis of the most influential authors. The most significant recent works are dissertations that examine the history of the Paris Conservatory, the creativity of prominent trombone teachers and their works on methodology (Velázquez, 2019; Carlson, 2015). Ukrainian researchers have not studied this issue yet. The purpose of the article is to study the influence of the method books “The schools of trombone playing” on European trombone art. Research methodology. The focus of the research is to study the most famous and innovative method books of the nineteenth century. The article applies the historical and chronological approach as the leading one in the study and organization of the research material; comparative approach to find the main differences between these “schools”; systematic and analytical approach to identify the most significant differences and their influence on the development of trombone mastery; historical and cultural approach to study the process of formation of national European trombone schools. The novelty of the study is manifested in the chronological classification of all known trombone schools in the nineteenth century and a detailed analysis of the most influential ones. Results and conclusion. Having analyzes the most significant European schools of trombone playing from the very first work by A. Brown, written in 1794, to the work by J. B. Arban, we have traced the process of historical development of the technical skills of musicians and identified the sources of the European method of trombone performance. In this context, the role of France is revealed as outstanding, because the first trombone class opened at the Paris Conservatory led to the emergence of the first original “school of playing”. This was followed by a whole cascade of similar works, first in France and then in other European countries. During the nineteenth century, thanks to the aforementioned method books and the Paris Conservatory, the French had a constellation of trombone players, including: Leo Arnaud, Michel Becquet, Henri Couillaud, Paul Deliss, AntoineDieppo, VincoGlobokar, AndréLafosse, DanielLassalle, JacquesMédecin, Fabrice Millischer, Nicolas Moutier, Jérôme Naulais, Alfred Alexandre Quentin, and many others. After the French success, Germany took the initiative and, thanks to the work of Franz-Josef Fröhlich, created its own school of tromboneplaying with a large number of performers, such as Friedrich August Bellecke, Johannes Culottes, Karl Traugott Queisser, Friedrich Schenker, and Paul Weschke. Thanks to A. Wirth, in the 1870s, a British method of trombone playing emerged, and hence a number of British performers of the XIX–XX centuries, including Byron Fulcher, Lance Green, Gustav Holst, Chris Houlding, Lindsay Schilling, John Kenny, Dave Stewart, and Roger Argente.