Professional Life
77 articles available online
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Michel Becquet
Interview
A young Michel Becquet challenges orchestral habits, champions the trombone as a solo voice and reflects on competitions, repertoire, teaching and sound.
By Benny Sluchin
Member
Hermann Baumann
A virtuoso's career
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.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Member
Part 3
Maurice André
Biography
Maurice André reflects on maturity—balancing performance, recordings and teaching, refining his approach to instruments and audience, and preparing for the limits of a virtuoso career.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Member
Part 2
Maurice André
Biography
From circus gigs to Bach with Karajan: Maurice André reveals how relentless work, discipline, and daily technical refinement shaped one of the greatest trumpet careers.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Member
Barry Tuckwell
Interview
Between the London Symphony Orchestra, international solo tours and Mozart or Strauss concertos, Barry Tuckwell reflects on sound, risk and musical instinct.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Free
The Newcomer
After 25 years as an undisputed orchestral authority, a German trombonist faces a new generation whose virtuosity unsettles the familiar hierarchy of his section.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Member
George Swift, You see who I mean?
In the 1930s, George Swift brought cornet virtuosity and jazz influences to the concert trumpet, building a remarkable reputation through just a handful of recordings.
By Michel Laplace
Member
Jazz and the Horn Series • Part 2
Julius Watkins
A pioneering career, landmark recordings and collaborations with jazz legends gave the French horn a place it had never occupied before.
By Jeffrey Agrell
Member
Brass in the Operas of Berlioz
Berlioz turned a changing brass section into a dramatic force, using horns, trombones, cornets and saxhorns to shape colour, distance, ceremony and fear.
By Benjamin Perl
Free
Brass Players in Rome
Behind Rome’s musical prestige, RAI brass players describe shrinking salaries, insecure orchestral careers and the compromises required simply to remain musicians.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Member
The classical solo concerto for trombone and its interpreters in the 19th century
From Queisser to Ferdinand David: the rise—and disappearance—of the classical trombone concerto in the 19th century reveals a forgotten golden age of virtuosity.
By Werner Beyer
Member
A New Job¹
A professional horn player faces a late chance to change course, as routine, ambition and the unnerving reality of an orchestral audition collide.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Free
Editorial
As concert life shifts away from brass, the future of the instrument depends on artistic standards, thoughtful programming and the commitment of every performer.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Free
Vitaly Bujanowsky
The world's Golden Horn
Called one of the Soviet school’s finest performers by Shostakovich, Vitaliy Buyanovskiy shaped horn playing through performance, teaching and composition.
By Anatoly Barantsev
Member
The Wrong Brass?
Between blind fidelity and reckless modernisation, instrument substitutions force performers to decide when the score’s wording serves—or betrays—the music.
By Rudolf Lewy
Member
An American trumpet player's impressions of european brass performances
An American trumpet player reflects on European brass traditions, comparing education, amateur practice and professional performance across both continents.
By Harold E. Krueger
Suppose they had an orchestra audition and nobody won?
By Thomas Stevens
Member
Individuality and Uniformity in Brass Players
As international standards reshape brass playing, musical individuality risks giving way to imitation, leaving tradition, ensemble work and personal conviction at stake.
By Hans-Joachim Drechsler
Member
The untimely demise of the ophicleide
Once central to French orchestras, the ophicleide lost its place to the tuba—a disappearance shaped as much by institutions and repertoire as by sound.
By Stephen J. Weston
Free
The Brass Sections of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
An international brass section takes shape in post-war New Zealand, where orchestral careers mingle with touring bands, immigration and some remarkably unconventional detours.
By Thomas Aitken
On the French School of horn playing
By Lucien Thevet
Member
Guy Touvron
Spotlight
Before international fame, Guy Touvron’s path ran through village bands, Maurice André’s class, competitions and a stubborn refusal to behave like a star.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Free
Interview with Miles Anderson
Jean-Pierre Mathez traces Miles Anderson’s path from early training to orchestral and freelance work, expanding on the tension between livelihood and artistic pursuit.
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Member
Henri Renart (1887-1979)
Interview
Henri Renart looks back on a remarkable musical life, from the wind bands of northern France to Paris’s leading orchestras, performing under renowned conductors while witnessing decades of change in performance, recording, teaching, and brass playing.
By Robert Coutet