1971–2003
Fresh from the archive
A collection of articles, interviews and historical documents.
Part 5
The Trumpet in the USA
The Confidence Pill
By Thomas Stevens
Digitized • 30 Jun 2026
Stage fright meets medical research as performers, physicians and early beta-blocker studies reshape the debate over confidence, fairness and public performance.
Editorial
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Digitized • 30 Jun 2026
As music becomes increasingly industrialized, Jean-Pierre Mathez argues for restoring local musical communities where composers, performers and audiences shape a shared identity.
Part 3 · End
Music in an American Frontier Communal Society
Aurora Colony
By Deborah M. Olsen
Digitized • 28 Jun 2026
Aurora’s bands, chamber groups and restored instruments show how communal faith, German heritage and American public life met in sound, from parlors to parades.
The trombone: changing times, changing slide positions
By Howard Weiner
Digitized • 27 Jun 2026
From Virgiliano to Praetorius and Eisel, early sources reshape long-held assumptions about trombone tuning, slide positions and historical playing practice.
Part 7 · End
Practical Hints
By James Stamp
Digitized • 25 Jun 2026
Tone stability remains the foundation of velocity as James Stamp reshapes a Clarke study into a preparatory exercise linking sound control with fluent technical playing.
Part 2
The Haydn Trumpet Concerto
By Alfred Willener
Digitized • 25 Jun 2026
André, Wobisch, Dokshitzer, Stringer and others reveal how tempo, phrasing, ornamentation and cadenzas reshape Haydn's trumpet concerto.
Interview with Hans Pizka
By Jeffrey Agrell
Digitized • 24 Jun 2026
From Vienna horn traditions and natural-horn training to orchestral style and pedagogy, Hans Pizka reflects on the foundations of horn playing and musical identity.
Part 2
Playing and singing simultaneously on brass instruments
By Benny Sluchin
Digitized • 24 Jun 2026
From interval production and tone generation to contemporary repertoire, simultaneous playing and singing becomes a demanding extension of brass technique.
Brass instrument research at Surrey University
By John Goodwin
Digitized • 23 Jun 2026
Acoustics, materials, bore design, and player perception meet in Surrey research linking laboratory measurements with the realities of brass performance.
Editorial
International Competitions - Time, a perishable commodity...
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Digitized • 22 Jun 2026
From competition juries to the accelerating pace of modern life, Jean-Pierre Mathez questions the judgments and pressures shaping musicians and their careers
Part 6
Practical Hints
By James Stamp
Digitized • 21 Jun 2026
A progressive adaptation of Clarke’s No. 91 uses slurs, accents and dynamic shaping to build speed while preserving tone stability and control.
The Trumpet in the Works of Jean-Philippe Rameau
By Albert Hiller
Digitized • 21 Jun 2026
From court entertainments to operatic dances, Rameau’s trumpet writing reveals uncommon technical demands and a broader palette of Baroque brass practice.
Part 2
Music in an American Frontier Communal Society
Aurora Colony
By Deborah M. Olsen
Digitized • 20 Jun 2026
Music shaped daily life in Aurora’s communal colony, from civic ceremonies and political events to touring brass bands that carried its identity across the American West.
Japanese painting from the 18th century
By Fujio Nakayama
Digitized • 19 Jun 2026
An 18th-century Okinawan scroll preserves a ceremonial procession where Chinese-derived instruments, including the rapa trumpet, marked diplomatic exchange with Japan.
The Audition System
Why American Musicians Emigrate?
By David P. Searfoss
Digitized • 19 Jun 2026
Behind orchestral vacancies in North America, travel costs, subjective selection and hidden hiring practices help explain a growing flow of musicians abroad.
Part 1
The Haydn Trumpet Concerto
By Alfred Willener
Digitized • 19 Jun 2026
As editions, instruments and traditions diverge, Haydn’s trumpet concerto becomes a lens on notation, style and the shifting meaning of performance.
Vitaly Bujanowsky
The world's Golden Horn
By Anatoly Barantsev
Digitized • 18 Jun 2026
Called one of the Soviet school’s finest performers by Shostakovich, Vitaliy Buyanovskiy shaped horn playing through performance, teaching and composition.
The Euphonium in America
A Short History
By Robert Reifsnyder
Digitized • 18 Jun 2026
Euphonium terminology, bore sizes, and band instrumentation shifted across Europe and America, from Sax and Conn to Gilmore, Sousa, and Fennell.
Part 1
Playing and singing simultaneously on brass instruments
By Benny Sluchin
Digitized • 17 Jun 2026
From Weber and Vivier to contemporary solo works, singing into the brass instrument becomes a multiphonic technique shaped by notation, acoustics, and practice.
Editorial
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Digitized • 17 Jun 2026
New editorial formats separate current news from long-form content while creating new links between performers, composers, and the evolving brass community.
Working with the Posaunenchor
By Max Sommerhalder
Digitized • 16 Jun 2026
From Württemberg youth groups to mass brass gatherings in Ulm, a community tradition links faith, education and amateur brass playing across generations.
Herpes labialis (lip sores)
A brass players' affliction
By Uwe Schwandt
Digitized • 16 Jun 2026
For brass players, a common lip condition can mean weeks away from the instrument, linking embouchure, health habits and recurring interruptions.
Instrument Making and the Ear
By Emile Ferron
Digitized • 16 Jun 2026
From hearing physiology to workshop testing, E. Ferron links instrument design, acoustics and perception, where no two ears judge sound in quite the same way.
Part 2 · End
Arnold Jacobs
Interview
By Roger Bobo
Digitized • 15 Jun 2026
From Curtis to Chicago, a tuba player's path crosses Reiner, Koussevitzky and Ormandy, while teaching evolves toward breathing, thought and musical function.
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Voices from the archive
“Everybody starts someplace. Everybody learns how to play. Everybody gets experience and gets fired or doesn't get fired.”
Glenn Ferris
“When first asked to write an article on any aspect of "women and brass playing", I was tempted to reply by just sending the title and signing it — sincerely yours.”
Frøydis Ree Wekre
“If you want artists to play the trumpet, I am convinced that the best thing to do is to create ONE class for both trumpets and cornets à pistons.”
Jean-Baptiste Arban
“When you play a sonata of Beethoven or an overture by Mozart for them, they listen a few moments then start up from their chairs, whistle 'Marching through Georgia'”
Henry T. Finck
“On January 8, 1961, … on the AM station of the West German Radio, Cologne, original Bach trumpets were sounded again for the first time in one and a half centuries.”
Edward Tarr
“I could say more, but it's 11 a.m. and the pub round the corner is open. They do a nice pint of beer and a tasty hot pie.”
John Davies
“If my ideas are not adopted, I will remain silent and my pains, my time, my money, my work, my activities, all will be wasted. f they are, I will be maligned.”
A. Léonard de la Tuilerie Pharmacist, Trombone in the 10th Legion, Paris 1847
“This has a great deal to do with the English sense of humour and the habit of supporting the underdog, and the tuba is the underprivileged person so everyone is kind to it.”
John Fletcher
“We musicians have a vital need of calm and of having time at our disposal so as to accomplish our art. We must fight to keep some time for ourselves.”
Jean-Pierre Mathez
“So, your trumpet plays in tune! In tune with what? Itself? A piano? An organ? A stroboscope? A violinist? If so, which violinist?”
Thomas Stevens
“My horn can play all the notes from the lowest to the highest with the same purity and strength without having to stop the hand into the bell.”
Heinrich Stölzel (1814)
“One might expect tests in international competitions to determine whether or not there is evidence of Propranolol in the blood of the candidates. And it's only 1981!”
Thomas Stevens
“When I had this cornet, I pounced on it, quite naturally, because I had been swotting the solfeggio for a year...”
Maurice André
Trumpet articles
View all trumpet articles →
The Baroque trumpet, the high trumpet and the so-called Bach trumpet – Part 1
By Edward H. Tarr
Edward H. Tarr examines the Baroque trumpet and clarifies the origins and meaning of the so-called “Bach trumpet.”
Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889) Biography – Part 1
His First Twenty Years
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
First part of a detailed biography of Jean-Baptiste Arban, tracing his early years, studies at the Paris Conservatoire and the beginnings of his career.
The Trumpet in the USA – Part 1
By Thomas Stevens
Across competitions, teaching and equipment in the U.S., trumpet practice exposes clashing ideas of musicality, raising the question of shared standards beyond national styles
Herbert L. Clarke (1867-1945) – Part 1
Boyhood Years
By David Hickman
From forbidden beginnings to cornet legend: Herbert L. Clarke’s early years reveal a path shaped by setbacks, persistence, and decisive discoveries.
Maurice André – Part 1
Biography
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
From the mine to the Conservatoire: Maurice André recalls his early years—revealing the chance, discipline, and destiny behind one of the greatest trumpet careers.
Philip Jones
Interview
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
From South London bands to the Philharmonia, Philip Jones recalls his musical upbringing, orchestral life and the rise of brass ensembles in post-war Britain.
Horn articles
View all horn articles →Interview with Hans Pizka
By Jeffrey Agrell
From Vienna horn traditions and natural-horn training to orchestral style and pedagogy, Hans Pizka reflects on the foundations of horn playing and musical identity.
Vitaly Bujanowsky
The world's Golden Horn
By Anatoly Barantsev
Called one of the Soviet school’s finest performers by Shostakovich, Vitaliy Buyanovskiy shaped horn playing through performance, teaching and composition.
The first european horn symposium
By Jeffrey Agrell
A week in Trossingen brought leading horn players, Mozart debates, natural-horn controversies and lasting friendships at a landmark European gathering.
300 Years of the Horn – Part 2, End
in the Dresden Court Orchestra
By Peter Damm
From Dresden’s court musicians to Hampel’s hand-horn technique, virtuoso players and court repertoire shaped a decisive shift in horn playing and orchestral writing.
300 Years of the Horn – Part 1
1680-1980, an attempted survey
By Peter Damm
From Versailles to Bohemia, hunting horns enter orchestral life through makers, players, early works and the Austro-Bohemian tradition.
300 Years of the Horn in Bohemia
By Kurt Janetzky
An unsigned portrait from the Dresden court links the rise of Bohemian horn playing to the ceremonial world of Baroque hunting culture.
Trombone articles
View all trombone articles →The trombone: changing times, changing slide positions
By Howard Weiner
From Virgiliano to Praetorius and Eisel, early sources reshape long-held assumptions about trombone tuning, slide positions and historical playing practice.
Viktor Venglowski
Musician and Teacher
By Sergej Gorovoj
From the Leningrad Philharmonic to the Conservatoire, one trombonist shaped repertoire, ensembles and generations of players across the Soviet Union.
The contrabass sackbut
a modern copy
By Richard Lister
A reconstructed 17th-century contrabass sackbut revives forgotten low brass practice, from Venetian polychoral music to modern performance challenges.
A Trombone Martyr
Auguste Léonard de la Tuilerie
By Benny Sluchin
A Paris apothecary turned trombone evangelist challenges 19th-century musical habits, imagining the slide trombone as the future voice of harmony.
The double-slide trombone
museum-piece with a future?
By Boris G. Manzora
As virtuosity reshaped 20th-century brass playing, Boris G. Manzora argued that the forgotten double-slide trombone could redefine technique and range.
Benny Sluchin
Portrait in brief
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
Between Paris, Cologne and Tel Aviv, Benny Sluchin brings mathematics, acoustics and contemporary performance into the brass world.
Euphonium articles
View all euphonium articles →The Euphonium in America
A Short History
By Robert Reifsnyder
Euphonium terminology, bore sizes, and band instrumentation shifted across Europe and America, from Sax and Conn to Gilmore, Sousa, and Fennell.
Tuba and Euphonium today
By Willi Kurath
A new era for low brass: Willy Kurath explores how modern tuba and euphonium design—driven by innovation and collaboration—redefines sound, technique, and solo potential.
Some thoughts on the euphonium and euphonium technique
By Barrie Perrins
The euphonium revealed: Barrie Perrins explores its history, technique, and expressive power—making a compelling case for its place as one of brass’s most versatile solo voices.
Tuba articles
View all tuba articles →Arnold Jacobs – Part 2, End
Interview
By Roger Bobo
From Curtis to Chicago, a tuba player's path crosses Reiner, Koussevitzky and Ormandy, while teaching evolves toward breathing, thought and musical function.
Arnold Jacobs – Part 1
Interview
By Roger Bobo
Two tuba giants meet in 1979 Chicago, where Arnold Jacobs turns technique, sound, orchestral life and pedagogy into a lasting musical ethic.
Henri Renart (1887-1979)
Interview
By Robert Coutet
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.
Cleveland Orchestra Audition in 1966
By Ronald T. Bishop
George Szell’s demanding 1966 audition process unfolds through orchestral excerpts, dynamic extremes and the search for absolute ensemble precision.
John Fletcher
Interview
By Jean-Pierre Mathez
From brass bands to chamber ensembles, John Fletcher reflects on the rapid rise of young British tubists and the changing role of the instrument.
A guide to commercial tuba playing in the Los Angeles area
By Tommy Johnson
Hollywood reality check: Tommy Johnson reveals what it really takes to become a commercial tuba player in Los Angeles—skill, versatility… and patience.
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Archive
1971-200330 years of international brass history — featuring articles by and about leading players, composers, teachers and instrument makers.
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Browse 124 issues and over 1,200 articles — filter by instrument, topic, author or issue.
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- Total articles
- 1’245
- Digitized articles since 1 Feb 2026
- 245
- Overall progress
- 19.7%
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- 34
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