The Renaissance brought new developments to both the construction and use of the trumpet. The busine style trumpet, a long, straight trumpet, had been the most widely used instrument until around 1400. New techniques in metal smithing made it possible to bend the tubing to create different shapes. Trumpets now began to appear in an ‘S’-shape and in the folded form that is more recognizable in today’s modern trumpets. This bending process allowed for the transformation of the awkward busine in to a more compact and easily transported instrument for military campaigns and ceremonial events.

The slide trumpet started to develop at almost the same time as these new techniques. The slide trumpet of the Renaissance was different from modern ‘U’-slide instruments in that the slide mechanism was a single slide in the first extension of tubing from the mouthpiece. The body of the trumpet itself was moved along the slide in a telescopic action. The instrument was held with the right hand moving the body of the instrument over the slide and the left hand stabilizing the mouthpiece to the embouchure. Though there are no surviving instruments of this type available to study now, modern reproductions based on artists renderings from period art show four possible slide positions. When fully extended to the fourth position, the instrument was lowered by four semi-tones. Measurements taken on a trumpet pitched in D show the first position to be a distance of just over 5 inches, with the fourth position obviously being around 15 inches. If the horn was held in the manner explained before, a players arm would be fully extended at the fourth position.

Translating this information to the natural overtone series of the trumpet, it appears that the slide trumpet of this type could play a nearly complete chromatic scale of two and a half octaves. The charts in illustration 1 show the available notes and positions for an eight-foot trumpet pitched in C. The top chart shows harmonics and the notes achieved with each movement of the slide, while the bottom gives the full range of the instrument; the white notes indicating the harmonics in first position; the black notes the tones in the extended positions. Brackets indicate the gaps that occur in the scale, the most serious being between the second harmonic and the fourth position tone of the third harmonic, a major third. Another gap occurs between the third harmonic and the fourth position of the fourth harmonic, but is easily remedied by lipping down the higher of the two notes.

illustration 1: slide trumpet ranges

The slide trumpet began to distinguish itself from the natural trumpet shortly after its development. The natural trumpet continued to be used in the court and in battle and was called trompette des guerre. The slide trumpet began to appear in the shawm bands, or alta cappella, and was called trompette des menestrels. This created new musical ideas, for now the trumpet was not only confined to the playing of a drone. The alta ensemble consisted of shawms, bombardes and slide trumpets and was the source of entertainment at court celebrations. These ensembles became more and more popular and soon were found throughout Europe. Burgundian records list for the first time the trompette des menestrals in the court of Philip the Good in 1422, and for many years after. Duties of these ensembles were to march at the head of processions, play at dinner and provide music for court dances. One of the favorite dances of the day was the basse danse. This music was constructed from a cantus-firmus tenor, usually a slow line played by the tenor bombarde, a florid and active treble part played by the shawm, and then the contra-tenor part, played by the slide trumpet. This contra-tenor part was often written after the first two and filled out the harmony. Employing many passing tones, this part was most easily played by a slide trumpet. These ensembles did have limited use in sacred settings. Civic alta bands had duties of playing in special Masses. A record from the city of Leiden shows that the civic ensemble accompanied a Mass in 1412.

Another popular use for the slide trumpet was in the city towers. The thurnerhorn (towerhorn) was used by the watchmen of these towers to not only perform the signaling duties of time or danger, but to also play tower music (abblasen). The city of Basel provides some excellent documentation as to what the duties of the tower musicians were. They were to play in two-part harmony ‘every evening and every morning’. Music played from the tower consisted of chorales or similar music, most of which would have been much more easily played on a slide trumpet. It is possible that the tower musicians played a slide trumpet for a different reason. Don L. Smithers suggests that they played the slide trumpets ‘to avoid difficulties with the knightly trumpet guilds’. The trumpet guilds of Germany were very strong organizations of trumpet players that were protected as Kammeradshaft, or lower nobility by the courts. The members of these guilds looked down upon any trumpeter that was not a member of these guilds. With the natural trumpet being the instrument of choice of the guilds, it is quite possible that the tower musicians played a slide trumpet to avoid being accused of acting like a guild trumpeter.

As mentioned before, there are no surviving examples of slide trumpets from the Renaissance. A strong argument for its existence can be made from examining some of the surviving manuscripts of the time. From the late 1400’s there are surviving works by Arnold de Lantins, Johannes Franchoys, Henricus de Livero Castro, Guillaume Dufay, and many others which refer to parts with names such as contratenor trompette, trumpetta introitus, or ad modum tubae. Church records from the time which list payments to trumpeters may indicate that these parts were meant to be played by trumpets. The examples in illustration 2 indicate the ranges and notes required of the instrument to play the ‘trumpet’ parts. With the exception of the Dufay, every part would have required a chromatic instrument. As explained before, some of the notes in the parts that fall in the ‘gaps’, most notably d’, may have been lowered by the process of ‘lipping’. It should also be noted that some of these works may have been intended to be transposed up a fourth of fifth.

illustration 2: required ranges of some music for renaissance trumpet

Iconography is also an important source of information in proving the existence of the slide trumpet in the Renaissance. Because the trumpet was highly regarded as a social and musical instrument, there are several examples of paintings, carvings, woodcuts, instructions in treatises and court inventories that survive today to provide information in the absence of an actual extant instrument. Many artists used the trumpet as the subject to show power and magnificence in their portrayals of celebrations or religious settings.

One such painting is The Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Antonio Vivarini (illustration 3). Preserved in the Staatliche Museen Gemäldegalerie collection at Berlin-Dahlem, this 15^th century painting depicts, among others, a long, busine trumpet with the mouthpiece not inserted into the instrument. The mouthpiece is, however joined to a long piece of tubing which appears to be meant for insertion into the instrument. The tubing is long enough to function as the telescopic slide that was described earlier. Curt Sachs, who was the first to suggest the existence of a slide trumpet in the Renaissance, also notes an interesting and significant detail in the painting. One of the other trumpets portrayed in the work is being held over the shoulder of the player, with the bell in the air. His left hand holds on to the mouthpiece end of the instrument, grasping the mouthpiece and pipe. It is possible that he is holding those parts to keep them from falling out of the trumpet as he holds it in this manner. A group of angels with trumpets near the top of the painting provide more proof. The manner in which they hold their instruments is consistent with the positions that were described earlier, one hand holding the mouthpiece to the mouth, the other holding the horn. It would be easy to move the slide back and forth to alter its pitch with the horn held in this way. This depiction of the playing position is also consistent with many other works of the time.

Hans Memling’s triptych (illustration 4), completed in 1480, also suggests that variable-pitch trumpets were in existence before 1500. This famous triptych, which once decorated the organ in the Benedictine church at Najera and is now in the Royal Museum in Antwerp, depicts Christ surrounded by a group of singers in the center panel. Of interest, though, are the left and right panels, which portray a large group of musicians. A shawm, a twice-folded trumpet, a lute, a tromba marina and a psaltery are the five instrumentalists on the left panel, while a long, straight trumpet, a folded trumpet, an organetto, a harp and a rebec play on the right panel. Again, the playing position for the trumpets is the same, left hand securing the mouthpiece to the embouchure, the right hand extended and holding the instrument. The length that the arms are extended on the two folding trumpets is different, however. This suggests that the instruments were meant to slide to and fro over the mouthpipe. Another curiosity in this work is the playing position of the straight trumpet. This instrument is being held in the same manner as the folded slide trumpets. The player holds the instrument to his mouth in the left hand, and the right hand holds the instrument, fully extended. Medieval illustrations of this type of trumpet show the instrument being held with both hands near the balance point in the center. Perhaps this straight trumpet is also meant to be moved along the slide to change the pitch. Or course, to list all the works that provide solid proof of the existence of a variable-pitched trumpet would be beyond the scope of this paper.

The slide trumpet appears in court records as early as 1386. Records from the Burgundian courts of Brussels and Lille for the years 1422-1462 list a trompette des menestrals (slide trumpet) as a distinctly separate position from the trompette des guerre (natural trumpet). In 1418, Charles VI of France employed the services of a trompette pour menestrier. The term also appeared in documents from courts in Savoy (1420 and 1418), from Aragon (1423 and 1418), Holland (1410) and St. Pol (1403). In the city of Mechelen in 1433, payments were made to ‘stede pipers met haeren trompette’; or the city shawms and their trumpet. Payments were made to similar ensembles in Leiden (1412), Aelst (1410), Ghent (1409), Audenaarde (1408) and Utrecht (1402). In his famous treatise, Musica getutscht, Sebastian Virdung lists and provides a drawing (illustration 5) of the thurnerhorn.

Despite all the apparent evidence to support the claim to the existence of the slide trumpet in the Renaissance, there are still those who dispute the proof. Peter Downey’s article "The Renaissance slide trumpet: Fact or fiction?" in Early Music Vol. XII/1 (February, 1984) is the strongest attack to date on the reality of the slide trumpet in the Renaissance. He argues that iconography cannot support the existence of a slide trumpet. Downey’s interpretation of the Memling triptych is quite different from that of many other musicologists. He concludes that because the busine style trumpet is being held in the same manner as the folded trumpets, that none of the three can be a slide instrument. He claims that trumpets from as early the 2^nd —millennium have been held in the ‘special manner’ in which they are being held in the triptych. Unless all the instruments from that early time were slide instruments, then the way the instrument is held can not prove the existence of a slide trumpet. His second argument addresses the trumpeten parts of the music composed in the era. Downey concludes that these parts were not actually meant to be performed on a trumpet, but sung in the military trumpet style. And if they were played on trumpet, they could be performed on the natural claret trumpet. His final argument is based on modern reproductions of slide trumpets. Based on those tests, he makes three claims; only half of the trumpeten parts would have been playable on a slide trumpet, the actual performance would have been different due to the inertia caused by moving an entire trumpet along a slide and that the only slide trumpet that could have played the parts would have had to have been pitched in C, the earliest known of those not appearing until the late 15^th century.

Rebuttals to this viewpoint are many. Ross W. Duffin argues that the way in which the instruments are held in the Memling painting is indeed significant in determining if the trumpets are variable-pitch. He points out that one of the trumpets is being held in a slightly different manner that the other two.

Duffin deduces that the two trumpets in the right panel are actually fanfare trumpets and don’t need to be held in a special manner since they are of fixed length, while the trumpet on the left panel is a slide trumpet and, logically, is paired with a shawm. Addressing Downey’s second argument, Duffin states that it is valid that the parts were probably meant to be sung and were modeled after the military trumpet style. He criticizes Downey, though, for not considering that the melodic motion of these parts could have been taken from the slide trumpet, which made use of the same harmonic series in addition to a few other notes. Duffin dismissed the claim that inertia was a problem as hearsay, claiming personal experience with reproductions produced no problems. He discounts Downey’s argument on the pitch of the instrument by discussing the sounding pitch of the shawm bands. He states that the standard pitches of the shawms of the 15^th century alta capella were d’ for the treble shawm and g for the bombarde, and that a standard upward transposition of a fifth due to unplayable low notes on those instruments was common. Therefore, the slide trumpet in D or in G would have worked well with this ensemble.

Herbert W. Myers also finds some holes in Downey’s argument. Myers finds fault with Downey’s use of the Memling triptych as the basis for his argument. While agreeing with Downey on the fact that the way the horns are held in this particular painting might not actually be solid proof, he finds faults with the artists renditions of the instruments. Minute details in the work are found to be at fault, such as the frets of the lute and fiddle are not in the right place, the shawm lacks a flared bell and a pirouette and that the stringing of the psaltery is not correct. Noting this lack of detail in the other instruments, is it any wonder that under close scrutiny, that there is no hint of any telescoping tubing on the trumpets? Myers claims that this work is not suitable to support either argument and for Downey to base his claims on this unreliable illustration is questionable. He does state, however, that there are many other works that do give consistent portrayals of a slide instrument. Myers agrees also with Downey on the issue of the trumpeten parts, but feels that the existence of the slide trumpet and performance of the trumpeten parts on it are two separate issues. Whether or not the slide trumpet played these parts should not be an argument against its existence. Myers criticizes Downey for ignoring some important possibilities, such as the thurnerhorn described in Sebastian Virdung’s Musica getutscht(see figure 5 for drawing from treatise) and for not addressing the question of why the trompette des menestrels was distinguished from the trompette des guerre. He claims that Downey provides an oversimplified view and fails to prove that the slide trumpet did not exist.

illlustration 3: detail from ‘Adoration of the Magi’ by Antonio Vivarini, c. 1444.

illustration4: detail from Hans Memling’s triptych

illustration 5: drawing from Virdung’s treatise, thurnerhorn is depicted on bottom

This instrument was not widely used by the trumpeter of the noble trumpet guilds. Like in the Renaissance, it was the preferred instrument of the tower watchmen in the city towers. Johann Ernst Altenburg wrote in his famous treatise:

It is possible that the slide trumpet did have other uses in Leipzig. Gottfried Reiche was one of Leipzig’s Stadtpfeifers, and as part of the job description would have been proficient on the Zugtrompete. He was also active as a church musician and was the favorite trumpeter of J.S Bach. Bach wrote many of his most challenging works for Reiche. It is known that a slide trumpet was in the possession of Reiche at his death in 1734. Bach wrote many works for the tromba da tirarsi, which is believed to be the Italian equivalent to the Zugtrompete. Perhaps Reiche performed these difficult parts on a slide trumpet.

An interesting controversy has been brought to light in recent years regarding Bach’s use of the tromba da tirarsi. Two prominent brass historians, Thomas G. MacCracken and Donald L. Smithers, offer differing views on the viability of this instrument. Smithers notes that the major organological treatises of the time do not mention a slide trumpet. Again we must rely on iconographical sources, as with the Renaissance slide trumpet. He questions whether or not the Veit instrument listed before was originally intended to be a slide trumpet and if it is actually the instrument that was listed in the Naumberg inventories. MacCraken simply accepts the Veit instrument as the tromba da tirarsi that was available to Bach and his contemporaries. Both historians list works that may be meant for performance on a slide trumpet. MacCraken lists six works: BWV 5, 20,46, 67, 77 and 162, noting that some of the parts may have had the phrase da tirarsi added later. Smithers adds to that list BWV 124, but stresses that all the qualifying phrases of da tirarsi were added later and is suspicious of Bach’s autography.

Both men offer clashing views on how the non-harmonic pitches of these works were achieved. MacCracken explains that when Bach used these notes, the parts may be viewed as unidentified parts for slide trumpet. That the parts may not have originally be designated for the slide trumpet ‘has to do with the possibilities of oral instruction and/or the players reading of the context. Basically, it was up to the musician as to whether or not they should use a slide trumpet. The practice of ‘lipping’ or tone bending was quite common during the Baroque. But MacCracken feels that Bach left it to the musician to decide which method to use to achieve the notes outside the natural harmonic compass of the trumpet. Smithers feels that the non-harmonic pitches were meant to be lipped in to place. The fact that so few examples of actual labeled da tirarsi parts exist indicates that there was an large gap of time between the original copying and the designation of these parts for slide trumpet. This delayed assigning of the parts to slide trumpet might indicate a change in the ability of Bach’s trumpeters. Reiche may have lipped the notes in question, being a virtuoso player. Later players, though, might have been less proficient at lipping and therefore would have needed an instrument of variable pitch.

The flat trumpet may actually have its roots in the Renaissance. A drawing from France by Jaques Cellier, c.1585, depicts an instrument with a double slide (illustration 6g). In the shape of a trumpet, it has a stay a little distance from the rear bow. The stay suggests that the rear bow was meant to move and may have altered the pitch. One hundred years later, a set of drawings by Nicholas Yeates for Francis Sandford’s History of the Coronation of James II, provides evidence for the existence of the flat trumpet (illustration 7a). One of the drawings portrays a cornetto player and two trumpeters playing twice-folded instruments. Even though the text of the drawing labels the trumpets as sackbuts, these instruments are probably slide trumpets and may be prototypes for the flat trumpet. It is believed that the term sackbut was a generic term of the time for any slide instrument. Many other drawings and depictions of trumpets of this type are labeled as sackbuts. Illustrations 7b, c and d all depict ensembles using the double slide trumpet with cornetto. 7b is a woodcut celebrating the coronation of Queen Anne in 1702, 7c is from the coronation of William and Mary in 1689 and 7d (1679) celebrated the anniversary of the ascension of Elizabeth.

This type of trumpet was called the flat trumpet for its ability to play in the ‘flat’ or minor keys, opposed to the ‘sharp’ or major keys that the natural trumpet was confined to. Like the slide trumpet of the Renaissance, there are no extant flat trumpets. There are however many musical and documentary examples that provide information and evidence of the flat trumpet. A manuscript by James Talbot, a professor at Trinity College in Cambridge from 1689 to 1704, provides descriptions and measurements of many instruments including the flat trumpet. He writes of the flat trumpet:

What Talbot describes is a double slide instrument where the rear bow is drawn backward toward the head of the player.

Examples of music written for the flat trumpet are numerous. Gottfried Finger composed some Tafelmusik for the St. Cecilia’s Day celebration of 1691 that contained one part for flat trumpet. It, in fact may have been one of the first works to include the flat trumpet, as a review in the Gentleman’s Journal, about the festival wrote:

Why the flat trumpet evolved is a wonder. Crispian Steele-Perkins states:

The flat trumpet probably never had a role bigger than that of a specialty instrument. The lack of physical evidence and the limited musical and documentary evidence seems to support this idea. It probably helped pave the way, though, for what was to become the most widely used of slide trumpets, the English Slide Trumpet.

illustration 6: double slide ‘flatt’ trumpets illustration 7: flatt trumpets

illustration 8: modern reproduction of a flatt trumpet

The date of conception of the slide trumpet in England is not known. Its origin is probably in the late 18^th-century, when John Hyde, an English trumpeter, proclaimed himself the inventor. The instrument, which is actually the Baroque flat trumpet with a mechanized slide return, underwent many design modifications throughout the 19^th-century and enjoyed strong popularity until the early years of the 20^th.

Most of the first slide trumpets developed were natural trumpets that were converted to slide trumpets. The slide was added to the rear bow, the parts telescoping inside the bell and the middle yards. Stabilizing the instrument were three stays that connected the lengths of tubing together. A long, hollow tube is connected to the three stays, which contains either gut string, a coiled spring or and elastic cord attached to a clock spring. With a finger pull attached to the central tube, the player pulls the slide backward with the right hand. The string, spring or chord would pull on the clock spring to create tension and the slide would return the slide to its original position when the tension was released. The standard slide trumpet was a six-foot instrument pitched in F. Included were crooks that would lower the pitch to E, E-flat, D, and C. Combinations of the crooks would lower the pitch even further, but those combinations were not used frequently. Also, the instrument came with tuning bits, small pieces of tubing that would be inserted between the mouthpiece and the shank to alter the pitch of the instrument for fine tuning in the absence of tuning slides.

Many examples of English slide trumpets still exist today. One of the earliest surviving models is the Rodenbostal/Woodham instrument, now in the possession of Brian Galpin. Made around 1790, the horn has a length of 70 7/8 inches, a bore of 7/16",

illustration 9: clock spring mechanism

a bell diameter of 4 1/2 inches and a maximum slide length of 3 3/4 inches. It had two clock springs, housed in a figure eight shaped box. The mechanism functioned as explained earlier. This horn also had a tuning mechanism on the central tube (illustration 11). It consisted of a movable metal sleeve with a channel cut into it and notched with teeth. The movement of the slide was regulated by inserting the teeth into brass lugs fixed onto the tube in which the sleeve encircled. This device was not used much on other instruments for it shortened the amount of tubing made available for slide movement.

An inscription on the cover plate of the clock spring mechanism reads "Woodham, Inventor & Maker, Exeter Court, Strand London." Richard Woodham was a clock maker in Exeter Court from 1764 to 1789. He was given the unfinished horn by George Henry Rodenbostel to fit it with a slide mechanism before Rodenbostel would finish it in his Piccadilly shop. This inscription contradicts the claim by John Hyde to be the inventor of this type of slide trumpet. In his trumpet tutor A New and Compleat Preceptor for the Trumpet and Bugle Horn, he wrote that the slide trumpet was "invented by J. Hyde and made by Woodham. It is probable that Hyde suggested the idea to Woodham, who then created the design.

illustration 10: the Woodham-Rodenbastel slide trumpet

illustration 11: tuning device

A slide trumpet currently housed in the Smithsonian provides another example of the clock spring slide mechanism (illustration 12). It is made of a copper alloy and brass with silver garnishes. It is unsigned and undated, but is a believed to be once owned by John T. Norton, a trumpeter with the London at the Drury Lane Theatre and the Italian Opera. It is pitched in F, with an extra copper crook for playing in E-flat. The additional crooks for C, D and E are lost along with the original mouthpiece. It has a total length of 71 7/8", a bore of 7/16" and has a maximum slide extension of 3 7/8". Like the Woodham/Rodenbostel model it has a tuning device for the minor intonation adjustments instead of tuning bits. The two clock springs on this instrument are strung in a slightly different manner than other slide trumpets. Instead of being strung so that both gut strings are knotted through a hole in the side of the central tube near the upper cross bar, only one is strung in this manner. The other is threaded through a small opening at the top of the spring case and attached to the finger cross-bar. This second spring is meant to serve as a reserve in the case that the first spring malfunctions.

Many other examples of clock spring slide trumpets exist. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has an instrument with a double spring box, The Brussells Conservatoire collection has two. The Adam Carse collection at the Horniman Museum contains two examples and the Paris Conservatoire collection has one. Many private English collections, most notably those of Eric Halfpenny, Jeremy Montagu and Reginald Morley-Pegge contain slide trumpets.

illustration 12: the Smithsonium slide trumpet

As the slide trumpet began to gain popularity in England, many manufacturers started to make design improvements over the older conversion models. Problems existed with the operation of the slide. There was not sufficient room for between the bell-boss and the finger pull. This would cause many players to have their fingers jammed against the boss. This problem was fixed by moving the boss closer to the bell. Another improvement was the use of the tuning bits instead of the aforementioned tuning mechanism. This allowed for further extension of the slide and added a full-tone shift in the high range. These modifications were first made by Clementi and Co., a company founded by composer Muzio Clementi. Made in collaboration with Thomas Harper Sr., a leading trumpet player in England, these instruments bore the title of "Harper’s Improved" inscribed on the bell. One of the first of this type of slide trumpet is housed in the Bate Collection. In 1833, brass instrument maker John Köhler signed a contract with Harper to make and distribute the "Harper’s Improved" models. Other makers of clock spring slide trumpets were Goodison, Pace and Power.

The compression spring was the next development in the improvement of the slide trumpet. Makers started to see that the clock spring was not only difficult to assemble and service, but also was expensive to make. The compression spring model used a spiral spring enclosed in a cylinder between the stays on the bell and bow. A rod with a disc on the end would compress the spring when pulled against it. While an improvement on the clock spring, the disassembly of the spring mechanism required the difficult task of taking apart the soldered finger pull. For this reason, not many slide trumpets with the compression spring were manufactured. The Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota houses two compression spring models made by the Charles Pace company and a short model horn, a slide trumpet folded four times instead of two, made by William Grayson.

The final and simplest of the slide mechanisms, the expansion spring or elastic chord, started to appear in the middle of the 19^th century. A spring or elastic chord was place inside the hollow center tube and was stretched as the slide was pulled out and would then contract to bring the slide back into position. The Bate Collection in Oxford has a Köhler "T. Harper’s Improved" model, which is believed to be one of the earliest examples of this type of slide trumpet. Several other Köhler instruments are housed in collections in the Horniman Museum, the Royal College of Music, Edinburgh University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Shrine to Music.

Other designs continued to be developed throughout the century. William Wyatt patented the first fully chromatic slide trumpet in 1890. This instrument was folded four times and had two double slides that were connected to one another. The advantages of this system were that the slide movement needed was half that of the previous models, allowing for larger shifts along the slide. It used a spring expansion mechanism to return the heavy double slide to the original position. Wyatt’s trumpet also had tuning slides in the crooks, one of the first to do so. Despite the advantages of this horn, it never gained much popularity. The slide functioned uncomfortably, and the smaller position changes were difficult to adjust to for those players used to earlier slide trumpets. Another design patented late in the century was the "Ortho-Chromatic Slide Trumpet" by Boosey and Co (illustration 13). This instrument was really nothing more that an alto trombone with a trumpet bore and bell. It had a forward moving slide with no return mechanism. Again, it was not popular and not many were made. Frenchman Francois Georges Auguste Dauverné also created a slide trumpet with a forward moving slide. It did not have a return mechanism but had a slide lock that could hold the slide at any position as an alternative to crook changes. Michael Saurle developed a trumpet with a tuning slide and pitch slide, and a curious trumpet with a slide crook, the crook itself had the slide mechanism, was apparently developed by Köhler. Most of these later developments never gained popularity due to the growing popularity of the valve. Many did not have the complete facility of the valve trumpet and no major advantages over the conventional slide trumpet. As composers began to write more rapid music for the trumpet, the valve gradually began to take the place of the slide.

illustration 13: the Ortho-Chromatic slide trumpet by Boosey and Co.

The technique of the slide instrument was similar to that of the natural trumpet. All players interested in learning the slide trumpet were encouraged to learn how to play the natural trumpet first. Many method books began to appear for teaching of the techniques that are unique to the slide trumpet. The first to was the aforementioned method written by John Hyde. H. Legram wrote the earliest tutor to appear in France in 1821. John Thomas Norton and H. Schiltz & Dauverne also wrote methods that were published. But the most influential of the tutors written were those of Thomas Harper and his son Thomas Harper Jr.

The playing position of the slide trumpet depended on where the return mechanism was located. In his method book, Harper Sr. writes on how to hold the horn:

Harper Jr. gives a slightly different description of how to hold the horn, with more of the support and balance being given with the left hand. This was probably due to the fact that Harper Jr. played the expansion spring model as opposed to his father’s clock spring model. The right hand played a more important role in the holding of the clock spring models as the return mechanism was provided more a jolt than the later models.

The slide movement was used to correct certain partials and to achieve half-step downward shifts from all partials. A slide movement of about a half an inch was used to correct the out of tune partials. To lower the pitch a half-step depended on which keys the instrument was played in. In the higher keys of F, E, E-flat, and D the slide was pulled out half way. The lower keys of D-flat, C, B, B-flat, A and A-flat required the slide to be moved two-thirds of the way out to achieve a half-step. Whole tone shifts were sometimes obtained by pulling the slide out fully, but they were often very sharp and were only used as passing notes.

Articulation on the slide trumpet was unique. The player articulated between the teeth, with the tip of the tongue just touching the upper lip. This method taught by Harper was different from the techniques introduced by Altenburg and Girolamo Fantini (Modo per imparare a sonare di tromba) that were so widely used throughout Europe. It is possible that because English music was written without the florid, high parts that the ‘ti-ri-ti-ri’ style of articulation was not necessary. The larger mouthpiece that was used on the slide trumpet was also a factor. Legato passages were played as modern trombone players play them today, with a soft legato tongue. It should be noted that the later Hawkes and Son tutor teaches the more familiar approach to articulation, the tongue used in the manner of saying the letter T.

The slide trumpet began to appear in the orchestras of the concert hall and opera houses in the early part of the 19^th century. The use of the instrument was not exclusive. Players of the time were expected to be versatile enough to play all the instruments available, in needed. This included the natural trumpet, the slide trumpet, keyed bugle, or valved cornet and trumpet. Solo literature for the slide trumpet was abundant. Many of the famous players of the time-James Sarjant, Hyde, The Harpers and Walter Morrow-played most of their solo repertoire on the slide trumpet. Most of this solo literature was unpublished and therefore did not survive. The two outstanding trumpet concerti of the day by Haydn and Hummel were written for the keyed trumpet. If these were ever performed on the slide trumpet is not known. Harper Sr. was known to have performed "The Trumpet Shall Sound" and "Let the Bright Seraphim" on his slide trumpet. But, again, as the valve trumpet gained popularity and composers wrote increasingly more difficult music for trumpet, the slide trumpet began to lose its dominance and slowly began to disappear.

illustration 14: Thomas Harper Sr., a pioneer of the English slide trumpet

Today, the slide trumpet is no longer the dominant instrument it once was. It did play, however, an important part in the development of the modern valved instrument. The slide trumpet inspired new compositional techniques for the instrument, which led to the ensuing search for technical advancements to achieve a fully chromatic instrument. The slide trumpet played a very active role the musical life of the Renaissance, Baroque and even the Classical eras.