The Music and History of the Baroque Trumpet before 1721 by Don L. SmithersReview by: Keith PolkNotes, Second Series, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Mar., 1975), pp. 561-563Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/896209 .

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gives one confidence in his judgements. A few details in the handling of biographical matters are less reassuring. Most unsettling are a few mistranslations of Italian docu- ments. For example, the preface to Gesual- do's fifth book of madrigals, which the author, while stressing its importance, translates here for the first time, is badly garbled in several sentences. Some other details are mishandled. 24 ore does not mean midnight; it means sundown. And so on for all other specifications of time. Several sentences from the letters on pages 62-68 of the book are misconstrued, and the originals are not provided. Other details reveal a certain naivete about late-six- teenth-century Italian history. The author writes Paolo Guidano Orsini for Paolo Giordano Orsini. He quotes Giulio d'Atan- eo without comment as the name of Giulio Tiene. On page 80 the point about the Duchess of Urbino is missed entirely: she did not kill her lover; her brother had him killed. The point of the reference to the Duchess of Urbino in Gesualdo's wife's letters is that the Duchess of Urbino caused tongues to wag by leaving her husband and returning to her family in Ferrara. This Leonora wanted to avoid. In short, the perfect book on Gesualdo may not yet have been written. But perfect books are rare indeed. Watkins has been thorough in searching out and interpreting a mass of documentary material, and his biographical sections are much the best things written on Gesualdo's career to date.

Between the sections on biography and music is a fifteen-page chapter entitled "The Question of Mannerism." This is the weakest part of the book. Mannerism is not a firm enough critical or historical concept

to allow one to call on it briefly in order to add power or clarity to one's thought. In fact, it usually has quite the opposite effect. Terms such as "Mannerist," "late Mannerist," "Baroque," and "Renaissance" appear here in a bewildering variety of contexts, without its being clear what mean- ing each is supposed to carry. I do not believe that Watkins has been dilettantish or cavalier in his approach to Mannerism. He has simply attempted the impossible. Until the concept is extricated from its present confusion, one must either leave it alone or write a book on it. Even the latter course of action is frought with dangers, as several distinguished scholars have shown in recent years.

The brief section on Mannerism does no essential harm to the book. If one's mind begins to reel in front of loose terminology and vague spirals of thought, one can simply skip the chapter, steeling oneself against the adjectives "mannerist" and "late man- nerist" that fly up into one's eye in later chapters like annoying flecks of grit. The rest of the book remains solid and valuable. And the publisher has not been niggardly in producing it. Footnotes are at the foot of the page; the musical examples are attractively printed and placed next to the apposite references in the text; the paper looks as if it were destined for more than ten years' life; the binding of my copy has not yet begun to crack ominously and sag. In short, the book seems to have been designed with the expectation that it will be used, even used regularly and over a period of time. The book itself justifies these expectations.

ANTHONY NEWCOMB University of California, Berkeley

The Music and History of the Baroque Trumpet before 1721. By Don L. Smithers. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1973. [323 p., $18.00]

The natural trumpet roused in our fore- fathers a sense of awe and wonder which we can scarcely comprehend. So distinctive was the trumpet that owning an instrument was a jealously guarded privilege. While the impression created by the instrument was related to its identification with nobility, even to modern audiences (less conditioned to respect an aristocracy) few sounds are

as arresting as well-played trumpet parts in Baroque cantatas and oratorios. A book that promises information on the Baroque trumpet and its traditions is welcome, par- ticularly when the author, Don Smithers, is himself a distinguished performer on the instrument.

Smithers has chosen a clear overall de- sign. In three initial chapters he defines

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the trumpet, discusses Renaissance precur- sors of the Baroque instrument, and surveys the contributions of some three centuries of makers of brass instruments. Smithers then discusses trumpet music in Italy (he believes that the new "artistic" style of trumpet playing began there). He then discusses trumpet guilds (which he believes were most important in Germany), and a chapter on German trumpet music follows. The next chapter is devoted to the Haps- burg Empire, followed by two chapters concerning English music (one devoted exclusively to Purcell). The final chapter discusses French trumpet music. An exten- sive appendix (43 pages) inventories sources of music for the Baroque trumpet, and this is followed by a selective bibliography.

Smithers defines the limits of his study as "until 1721, the date of Bach's Branden- burg Concertos," an unfortunate stricture, because the Baroque tradition survived only about another 30 years, and more impor- tantly, the definition eliminates discussion of the music of Bach and Handel. Such a restriction is, of course, the author's privi- lege, but many of us would have appreciated the views of a musician of Smithers's stature on this repertory. Fortunately, he is not completely consistent with his own restric- tion, and in the appendix, for instance, he includes many pieces written in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The strongest aspect of the book is the discussion of music. Smithers's survey of Italian composers begins with Monteverdi (with the Toccata in Orfeo of 1607), then traces developments from Fantini's treatise (1638) to the composers centered especially in Modena and Bologna at about mid-cen- tury. The gap in musical sources between early Monteverdi and ca. 1650 is consider- able and is puzzling. Smithers's decision to survey many composers made substantive analysis impossible, but he does give useful short descriptions of the most important pieces. He justifiably emphasizes the Bo- lognese repertory (some 83 pieces scored for one, two and four trumpets with various other instruments.) He observes that "in circumventing the natural defects of the trumpet, Italian composers were forced to rely on short thematic fragments and suc- cinct musical ideas, rather than long me- lismatic phrases found in polyphonic string and vocal compositions," and his conjecture on how this might have influenced the

development of the concerto is thought- provoking.

The treatment of German trumpet music follows the same lines. He describes several pieces from early in the seventeenth century (by J. M. Altenburg, Praetorius, Schiutz, Schein and Tobias Michael.) The relative wealth of such music when contrasted to the absence of Italian pieces between Monteverdi and mid-century would appear to weaken Smithers's argument that "the use of the trumpet spread rapidly from Northern Italy into Bohemia, Germany, England and Scandinavia . . .," especially considering the peculiar nature of Monte- verdi's Toccata. I suspect that Smithers is correct, but the sources do present a puzzle. Smithers proceeds to the late-seventeenth- century repertory, including both solo pieces and large-scale vocal works that call for trumpets (some of the better composers are Kuhnau, Pezel, and Buxtehude), and he then turns with obvious relish to music of Moravia and Bohemia. Performers, especially, will appreciate this introduction to a large store of little-known music, works by native composers (especially Biber), as well as music by "foreign" composers which exists in unique copies in Moravian and Bohemian manuscripts. Much of the chap- ters on English music has appeared in previous articles, but it is convenient to have this material assembled in one work (players will appreciate particularly Table 2, an inventory of Purcell's trumpet music.)

Smithers knows his main subject well, but his command of related areas and his meth- odology seem less secure. His listing of secondary sources ("paintings, carvings, and the infrequent instructions set down in treatises and musical compositions") omits, among others, archival sources. Smithers feels that "religious painting is the most fruitful source for representations of Renaissance instruments," a statement which demands qualification. Mid-fif- teenth-century miniatures, for example, are more valuable than paintings if one wishes to study instruments as they were used in "real" ensembles. Smithers feels that "the most important areas to develop municipal music and musicians were the Central Eu- ropean Germanic principalities of the Holy Roman Empire." Italian cities supported a rich tradition, which could claim either directly or indirectly composers such as Tromboncino and Orologio. Flemish cities,

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too, supported municipal ensembles lavish- ly, and could claim such musicians as Susato; English bands produced musicians of the stature of John Adson. The development of town music was international, apparently a manifestation of the cultural drive of Renaissance cities in general. The tradition may have maintained its vitality in Germany longer than elsewhere, but Smithers does not look at it in this way. His treatment of matters relating to the Low Countries is unfortunate. Amsterdam raetelwaekers were watchmen with rattles (i.e., noise- makers), not city watchmen (Raadwaekers), as he suggests. His reference to actions taken in the "kingdom of Holland" soon after 1426 is embarrassing, for no such kingdom existed then. One can only be perplexed by omissions in the bibliography; Edmund Bowles, Jeanne Marix, and Mary Rasmussen are among many with important contributions which are not cited. Vivian Safowitz's impressive master's thesis ("Trumpet music and trumpet style in the early Renaissance," University of Illinois, 1965) is one of several theses omitted. Even the article in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, which includes an extensive bib- liography, is not mentioned.

The appendix contains an extensive list- ing of sources for music for trumpet. Smithers lists pieces by composer (with dates), giving title, instrumentation and location. His scholarly procedures are hardly exemplary; sometimes manuscript numbers are given, sometimes not; some-

times titles are given in italics or are trans- lated, sometimes not. Most composers' works are listed singly, with specific refer- ences. For too many, though, the reader is faced with a vague statement, like that for Handel: "Many vocal and instrumental works with important trumpet parts. See the various volumes of the Handel Gesell- schaft Ausgabe, ed. by Friedrich Chrysander

.." Enough requisite information is given in most cases, but it is a pity to see such substantial effort carelessly flawed.

The book is attractively printed, with few typographical errors. Illustrations, too, are nicely reproduced. Smithers's writing style lacks grace, which of itself is not a major drawback. The editing, however, should have been stricter. Certainly foreign texts should have been given consistently (Ger- man quotations are given in the original in the main text, with translations in foot- notes; with Italian quotations the procedure reverses, with the original in footnotes; French and Latin texts appear in translation without any original at all).

Defects in Smithers's effort are undenia- ble, but the flaws are to be found for the most part in the historical discussions. The sections on music and the appendix of musical sources are valuable contributions. The book is compartmentalized, and in balance I can recommend it, especially to musicians and performers whose interest will be to get at the music.

KEITH POLK University of New Hampshire

Essay on an Introduction to the Heroic and Musical Trumpeters' and Kettledrummers' Art, for the Sake of a Wider Acceptance of the Same, described Historically, Theoretically, and Practically and Illustrated with Examples. By Johann Ernst Altenburg. Transl. from the German ed. of Halle 1795, with an introd., notes, and index by Edward H. Tarr. Nashville: The Brass Press, 1974. [xvii, 148 p.; $10.95]

Everyone knowledgeable about music will likely admit that any person who plays a musical instrument and wishes to attain true mastery should first of all have an exact and correct under- standing of the nature and character of the instrument. For every art there are two principal parts, namely: Science (theory) and ex- ercise (practice). These two parts, knowledge and proficiency, must there- fore be truly united if anyone wants to

learn his art in a correct and thorough manner, otherwise no one can say with truth that he is a master of his art.

Thus begins the second part (Chapter VIII) of Johann Ernst Altenburg's Essay * . . .Part One treats of the historical and theoretical, while Part Two deals with the practical aspects of performance. Altenburg was described by Arno Werner as "the last exponent of the heroic art of the trumpeter and kettledrummer." He was both a

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