On 20 Jan 2009 at 23:17, John Howell wrote: > (And no, there were > no trombones in the Toccata, just the trumpet > corps from the Duke's military establishment who > played their little fanfare and then went out for > a beer or three!
Er, there aren't any trumpets in the Toccata, either, just cornetti. Whether or not those were military instruments I don't know, but they sure weren't trumpets. > Mozart called for alto, tenor and bass > doubling the alto, tenor and bass choral lines in > many of his sacred works, and the only reason > Mendeslssohn used trombones in his "Reformation" > symphony was because of that religious reference. Mozart didn't "call for" trombones -- there's no indication of that in the scores of any of his liturgical music. But it was standard practice to double the bottom three choral lines with trombones. He didn't indicate what instruments would play the bass line, either, but it's clear in the choral music that it would likely be organ and one or two bass instruments. Likewise with the trombones, it's not explicit in the score precisely because it didn't need to be. Thus, in the Reformation symphony, Mendelssohn is drawing on a sound that would be a clear point of reference for his listeners and immediately summon up the associations of liturgical music. So, trombone players were actually pretty busy pre-Beethoven, just not in secular instrumental music. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
