Brass Bulletin No. 49

Jean-Pierre Mathez

Artistic progress is measured not only in technique but in doubt, self-awareness and hope, as Jean-Pierre Mathez looks beyond the instrument to the person playing it.

Wolfgang Suppan

After 1950, Central Europe’s amateur wind bands became a testing ground where inherited traditions, modern composition, popular music and education collided.

From Pierre Trichet’s Traité des Instruments de Musique (c. 1640)

Pierre Trichet

Trumpets served war, ceremony and even medicine before Trichet turned to the mute, a simple device whose purpose extended far beyond changing the sound.

Old World Craftsmanship plus New World Technology

Jeffrey Agrell

In 1980s Chicago, Steve Lewis joined Old World bench craft to modern precision, building horns one by one around the player, the metal and a distinctive sound.

Edward H. Tarr

A lost 18th-century horn tutor resurfacing through South America completes a Handel duet and preserves strikingly practical advice on horn playing.

The Unrecognised Jazz Trumpeter

Michel Laplace

Overshadowed by Armstrong and later by Eldridge, Jabbo Smith emerges as a crucial trumpet innovator whose speed, range and phrasing anticipated modern jazz.

Teaching and application

William F. Cramer

Technique becomes musicianship when breathing, vibration, resonance, articulation and slide movement cease to be separate skills and begin working as one.

Trumpet Virtuoso and Artist from Moscow

Marcel Hollenstein

In 1983 Moscow, Timofey Dokshitser weighs virtuosity against musicianship, opening a window onto Soviet trumpet training, orchestral life and artistic discipline.

New dental aids for brass players

Jeffrey Agrell

A trumpeter’s dental experiments in the 1980s turned teeth, mouthpiece pressure and embouchure into an unexpected field of collaboration with dentistry.

Thomas Aitken

A principal trumpet, influential teacher and formidable musician remembered through the voices of pupils who experienced Ernest Hall’s uncompromising standards.