In art music in general, the trombone is not an instrument associated with greatness

In art music in general, the trombone is not an instrument associated with greatness. It was used sparingly by the greats of the Classical and early Romantic era, and then, for the most part, as harmonic background and accompaniment to the strings and higher winds. But its origins were hardly thus. Michael Praetorius referred to it in this way;

This musical instrument – the sackbutt – is the wind instrument par excellence in concerted music of any kind. A skilled player can play at will in all sorts of keys through tones and semitones, and can go beyond the compass in either direction; not only by inserting and extracting the crook (called cromette) and the other extension-piece (polette), but also by practised control of embouchure and wind-pressure, without using the slide at all.

This is not possible on other instruments, where holes have to be covered with the fingers.

The sackbutt, or early trombone, played an important role in the development of instrumental music of the early Baroque and late Renaissance and was considered by many to be the greatest and most versatile of winds. "Praetorius lists trombones among ‘ornamenting melodic instruments’" The trombone was one of the first instruments specified in music, and Gabrieli and Schütz and their compatriots made it one of the most-often specified instruments of the turn of the seventeenth century.

The origins of the trombone are very vague. There is much debate among scholars about the time and specific location of its invention and first development. We know that by 1500, artwork depicting the trombone was in existence, showing an instrument very similar to what is still played today. But opinions vary widely about its history before this point. The majority of scholastic analysis places its origins in the early-mid 15^th century, in what is today Germany, although some sources place its origins in the middle of the 14^th century, and some, later. Even the origin of its English name, the sackbut (or sackbutt, shagbut, sagbut, shagbosh, with many variations thereon), at least its original meaning, is shrouded in mystery.

An early name for the trombone, probably derived from the Spanish sacabuche ('draw-tube'), i.e. sacar 'to draw,' and bucha 'a pipe,' originaly of boxwood (cf. Portuguese sacabuxa), the name being also given to a form of pump. In Egypt the Arabic buq is still used to denote a kind of trumpet. Other derivations, however, are from O.F. saquierboter ('to pull and to push') or Sp. sacar del buche ('to exhaust the chest'). The form first appears in Spanish literature of the 14th century, the trombone having been evolved from the trumpet about the year 1300. At the beginning of the next century the French form saqueboute is found, and at the close of the same century, when the instrument was introduced into England, it was known as the shakbusshe and subsequently as the saykebud, sackbut or sagbut

Many names have been given to the Renaissance trombone, including sackbut (literally "push-pull"),

In the fourteenth century it is mentioned by Spanish writers under the name Sacabuche or Saquebute, that is, "draw-trumpet." From this name comes the French Saquebute and the Old English Sagbut or Sackbut.

Fortunately, its usage is more widely documented. In the 14^th century, a common sight to see at any wedding or other formal event requiring loud instruments was the alta capella, a musical trio consisting of a shawm and either two bombards (tenor shawms) or a bombard and a trumpet. This trio would play common melodies and improvise parts above and below them. In the middle of the century, the trumpet was replaced with the bagpipe as the preferred alternative to two bombards, as the trumpet was very limited in what it could do in its lower range. But the bagpipes did not have the right timbre to complement the shawm and bombard. As the century ended, a new invention, the slide trumpet (a straight trumpet with a single slide; the mouthpiece was held to the lips with one hand, while the instrument was moved with the other through as many as four different positions, each the equivalent of a semitone) replaced the bagpipe, giving back the complementary color of the trumpet with the improved lower register. However, slide trumpets were very awkward to hold and play, and they would tire out a musician very quickly. So, somewhere, someone, in between 1400 and 1435, decided to reconfigure the slide trumpet with a double slide and mounted its bell, with a curve to face it forward, so that it would rest on the shoulder of its player. Thus was born the trombone.

The trombone’s use in the alta capella grew rapidly, and by the middle of the 15^th century, it was being played before royalty for weddings and at other formal events. At this point, it was introduced into sacred use, first to double the lower voice parts. This is when the trombone’s fame really established itself, this is where it found it true niche. Unlike most instruments of the time, the trombone could be used in both for "soft" and "loud" music.

This type of musical identity was the most important feature of the trombone in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Early trombones had a wide dynamic range, but virtually every piece that specifies their use, particularly those that also name other instruments on different parts, seems to assume these subtle and restrained qualities. However, on the other hand, when copies of early instruments are blown really hard, the sound characteristic is entirely different. The timbre "breaks up" and the sonority changes markedly, becoming brassy. Mersenne warned against this type of playing… but presumably he had heard trombones played that way, and there are abundant sources, particularly from the sixteenth century, which indicate that trombones played with trumpets and shawms for declamatory fanfares outdoors.

As time progressed, and musical tastes changed, the role of the trombone became increasingly tied to the church. When Gabrieli wrote his canzonas, the instrument he specified most was the trombone. By this time, there were four types of trombones commonly found, three of which were often used to double the lower three parts of choral singing, the soprano being covered by most often either the cornett or violin. The most common of these was the Tenor, which was pitched in A (however, due to many factors of tuning at the time and the way the instrument was probably held, with its slide pulled in completely, it would have sounded either a Bb or possibly even a flat B, as the A that it was tuned to was somewhere between what we would now call 1^st and 2^nd position). The Alto was pitched either a fourth or fifth higher, and the Bass, a fourth or fifth lower. There is also mention of a still lower trombone, an octave below the Tenor,

Octave sackbutt (tuba maxima, trombone doppio, or la trombone all’ ottava basso) which in earlier times was very rarely encountered. Those I have seen fall into two classes. One is as long again as the ordinary sackbutt, not counting the slide, and it matches this instrument completely, in slide-positions and everything else, except that it sounds an octave lower…

The middle of the 17^th century is when the trombone reached its zenith of popularity and use. It was written for by some of the greatest composers of this time, and many masterpieces are written around it, including Gabrieli’s Sonata Pian’ e Forte, Schütz’ Absalon, Fili Mi and many others. However, after this point in history, the homogeneous sound and doubling of voice with instruments that were so popular at the beginning of the century gave way to the French string section. As the canzona turned into the sonata, it was more and more handed to the strings, which were more often compared with the human voice than the trombone at the time. While some still wrote for the trombone, most notably in Germany and the churches in Italy, it was getting neglected elsewhere. Whereas in the 17^th century, many of the great masters wrote much for the trombone, Händel and Bach wrote very little indeed for it. Not one of Vivaldi’s 400 concerti was written for trombone. Beethoven and Mozart touched on it very sparingly, and they used it most often for mood painting and special effects in their operas. The instrument once described as "the wind instrument par excellence", had lost its place in the musical world, and to this day, it still has but a shadow of its former presence in music.

Bibliography

Baines, Anthony; Brass Instruments (Their History and Development)

Faber & Faber, London, 1976

Donington, Robert; The Instruments of Music, 3^rd ed.

T. and A. Constable LTD, Edinburgh, 1970

Donington, Robert; The Interpretation of Early Music

St. Martin’s Press, Inc., New York, 1974

Galpin, Francis W.; A Textbook of European MusicalInstruments (Their Origin, History, and Character)

Williams and Norgate, Lld., London, 1956

Herbert, Trevor and Wallace, John; The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997

Mersenne, Marin; Harmonie Universelle