Brass Bulletin N. 51

Jean-Pierre Mathez

A museum, a factory, a familiar instrument: Jean-Pierre Mathez turns ordinary encounters with brass into a reflection on the bond between player and voice.

Edouard Gros

A teenage double bassist in 1920s Lausanne turns family resistance, scout orchestras and hard-earned engagements into the beginnings of a professional life.

A social portrait of the British brass player

Thomas Aitken

Four British brass players confront a profession transformed by orchestras, freelance work, social prejudice and the shrinking certainties of musical life.

A virtuoso's career

Jean-Pierre Mathez

A career built on sound, memory and the natural horn shows how Hermann Baumann helped redefine what a horn soloist could be on the international stage.

The classical Armstrong period (1927-1945)

Michel Laplace

Jazz trombone changed rapidly between 1927 and 1945, as Armstrong’s influence, big-band playing and new techniques transformed both its language and sound.

Schilke Music Products, Inc. Chicago

Stephan Suter

In a Chicago workshop, traditional handwork meets new bell-making methods, while Renold Schilke’s uncompromising standards shape an unusual company culture.

C. G. Conn Ltd. Abilene, Texas

Stephan Suter

In Abilene, automated production and workshop skills meet under a familiar name, as an American brass maker seeks to regain ground lost over the previous decade.

Jean-Pierre Mathez

A professional horn player faces a late chance to change course, as routine, ambition and the unnerving reality of an orchestral audition collide.

Discovery of unpublished trumpet studies

Anatoly Selianin

Forgotten in Leningrad for decades, Trognée’s unpublished trumpet studies reconnect the Belgian virtuoso with a European tradition his Russian career had obscured.

Friedemann Immer

Natural trumpet playing demands more than historical equipment: Friedemann Immer sets modern technique against Baroque sound, articulation, style and authenticity.