Cornet à pistons

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

His First Twenty Years

First part of a detailed biography of Jean-Baptiste Arban, tracing his early years, studies at the Paris Conservatoire and the beginnings of his career.

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

The beginning of his career

Second part of Jean-Baptiste Arban’s biography, covering the early years of his career, his public performances, work with Adolphe Sax and the development of his famous method.

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

The Success

At the height of his fame, Arban fights to reshape musical education—and to save the trumpet from disappearing.

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

IV. The Conflict

Fame or duty—can you have both? At the height of his career, Jean-Baptiste Arban is forced to choose between international success and his post at the Paris Conservatoire… and pays the price.

Hall, Jack

The saga of the cornet and six of its outstanding artists

The cornet reached extraordinary heights in the 19th century. Jack Hall traces the rise of its greatest virtuosi and a remarkable era of technical brilliance.

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

The Arban-Cornet

At 55, Jean-Baptiste Arban sets out to reinvent the cornet and impose it on conservatories. A relentless quest for perfection… ending in failure.

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

The Last Years of his Life

Arban and the call for progress: inspired by Saint-Saëns, he makes a final push for a C cornet—an effort that would ultimately fail.

Mathez, Jean-Pierre

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography

Critical Analysis of his Method

Is the Arban method really ideal? This critique reveals its limits—and calls for a rethink of brass pedagogy.

Hickman, David

Herbert L. Clarke (1867-1945)

Boyhood Years

From forbidden beginnings to cornet legend: Herbert L. Clarke’s early years reveal a path shaped by setbacks, persistence, and decisive discoveries.

Hickman, David

Herbert L. Clarke (1867-1945)

Crucial Years

From illness and doubt to early triumph: Clarke’s “crucial years” reveal a fragile path—where talent, chance, and setbacks nearly drove a future legend away from music.

Hickman, David

Herbert L. Clarke (1867-1945)

Early professional years

From struggle to breakthrough: Herbert L. Clarke’s rise reveals relentless practice, early setbacks, and the defining audition that launched one of history’s greatest cornet careers.

Hickman, David

Herbert L. Clarke (1867-1945)

His Career

From struggle to legend: Part 4 traces Herbert L. Clarke’s rise from hardship to global fame—touring, recording, teaching, and shaping modern cornet playing.

Gauffriau, Jean-Michel

The Remarkable Story Behind the Cover

A war, a theft, and an unexpected recovery turned one nineteenth-century cornet into a witness to musical memory beyond its craftsmanship and sound.

Laplace, Michel

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and Popular Music

Before Louis Armstrong became the defining figure, jazz already carried competing traditions of tone, style and technique shaped by cornet players across New Orleans and beyond.

Laplace, Michel

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and Popular Music

The “Classical” Period 1927-1945 — The Golden Age of the Trumpet

Between Armstrong’s rise and bebop’s arrival, the trumpet became jazz’s dominant voice, reshaping technique, orchestras, sound, mutes and virtuosity.

Laplace, Michel

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and Popular Music

The pluralism of the so-called “modern” forms (1945 to the present)

Bebop, Miles Davis and the rise of the flugelhorn mark a postwar jazz landscape in which trumpet playing splintered into competing sounds and ideals.

Laplace, Michel

Harry James (1916-1983)

Young Man With A Horn

Harry James stood between jazz virtuosity and popular showmanship, turning the trumpet into a mass-audience voice without losing the respect of classical players.

Laplace, Michel

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and Popular Music

The instrument for jazz

Jazz trumpet playing balances equipment, embouchure and articulation, as changing sound ideals reshape mouthpieces, technique and the physical approach to playing.

Laplace, Michel

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and in Popular Music

Breathing

Breathing, Valsalva, mouthpiece position and daily practice collide with received wisdom as trumpet technique is reconsidered from the body outward.

Laplace, Michel

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and Popular Music

Special jazz techniques

Vibrato, half-valves, growls and shakes lead to a larger argument: jazz transformed trumpet technique, yet its contribution remained strikingly undervalued.