The Kaiser's Trumpeters

 

Back in days long past,
a man's preference in headgear
said a lot about him.
But sometimes its style
was not by choice
but by order.

 

 

 

 

This was especially true
of military men
whose hat or helmet
was specified by regulation. 

 

For a soldier,
a helmet signified
duty and service.
And the best headgear
was reserved for only the elite.
A soldier's honor and pride
couldn't get any better
than wearing a hat style
approved by an emperor. 

Today I present
photos of musicians wearing
the ultimate helmet of the German Imperial Guard,
the trumpeters of the Kaiser.

 

 

The first image comes from a German postcard of a stern-faced soldier dressed in an impressive parade uniform. His sword, shiny high boots, and cuirass, mark him as a cavalryman. But it is his impressive helmet topped by an eagle that really catches attention. His piston valve trumpet adds extra bling. The caption reads:

Willy Metz, als Stabs-Trompeter v. Regt. Garde du Corps
(Leipziger Krystallpalast- Sänger)   

 

A "Stabs-Trompeter" translates as "staff trumpeter", a military rank similar to a sergeant and equivalent to a trumpet major in a British cavalry regiment. Originally the purpose of a trumpeter was to be an officer's signaler on the battlefield directing troops in battle, or blowing various calls for announcing ordinary duties while in camp. With today's modern communication systems, a military trumpeter no longer performs any tactical service but still plays a ceremonial role preserving military traditions. 

This trumpeter's uniform was of the Regiment der Gardes du Corps, the personal bodyguard of the king of Prussia and, after 1871, of the German Emperor, the Kaiser. It was an elite unit of Life Guards cavalry which is still found today in several European countries along with a mounted band led by trumpeters.

 

This card was sent on 3 July 1906 from Plauen, a large city in Saxony, Germany, not far from Leipzig. When I first acquired this postcard I assumed this man was a musician of the Gardes du Corps band, as in this era it was very common for military bands to perform at concert halls. Perhaps Willy Metz was featured as a soloist. His postcard is similar to postcard photos of individual French and British military bandsmen from this same era.

 

 

 

Stabstrompeter Reinhold Fellenberg (1848–1912)
Source: Wikipedia

When you look up the word "Stabstrompeter", you are directed to the German Wikipedia page for Stabsoboist, another German military musician's rank, which includes Stabswaldhornist for bandsmen in light infantry regiments, Stabshornist for engineer regiments, Stabstrompeter for artillery and cavalry. Basically the position was equivalent to a sergeant who was the chief musician and band leader. In 1908 the position was raised in the German army to Militärkapellmeister or military bandmaster which was a non-commissioned rank just below officers. On the Wikipedia page is this portrait of Stabstrompeter Reinhold Fellenberg (1848–1912) illustrating what a typical German Stabstrompeter looked like in uniform. Besides being an accomplished  cornet and flugelhorn player, Fellenberg was a prolific composer whose music was well known throughout Germany and Europe during his career. 

 

Beginning early in his training Stabstrompeter Fellenberg served in several cavalry bands which, I think, is evident in the type of helmet he wears. However he was never a member of the Garde du Corps in Berlin so his helmet's finial only has a sharp point and not an eagle. The Imperial Eagle on a Garde du Corps helmet carried a level of prestige several degrees higher in grandiosity.

  

 

Model 1894 Prussian Kurassier Helmet
Source: The Internet

 

 

 

 

 

The reason for the extra glitter was, of course, due to the fashion tastes of the German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941). In this postcard Kaiser Bill appears in  the full uniform of a Prussian Garde du Corps complete with cuirassier and a brilliant eagle on his helmet, which I presume was made of solid gold. The Kaiser was undoubtedly the most photographed person of his time, and he almost always appeared in military uniform, sometimes even wearing a general's outfit from another country's army. See him as a Spanish general in my story from September 2021, A Pair of Kings. His valet must have been an expert in military accoutrements to keep the Kaiser dressed in perfect order.

 

Like most royalty, the Kaiser also acquired a taste for military music from countless parades and military review. I suspect he even greeted many of the Stabstrompeters in his household guard by name. Who wouldn't like having a trumpet fanfare to announce your every entrance? 

 

 

 

This next cabinet card photo shows another Imperial trumpeter dressed in nearly the same Garde du Corps uniform as Willy Metz. He has the same eagle helmet, sword, and tunic. The differences are that this man has no cuirass chest protector and holds a valveless natural trumpet with a Prussian state banner. This photo is not like a souvenir postcard but is clearly a portrait of a musician of some distinction. 

 

The photo was taken at the studio of Max J. Bartsch & Co. of Berlin, at Königsgraben No.20. Curiously the photographer's imprint on the back of the photo has a telephone number: 3127, AMT V. This dates the card to after 1881 when the city of Berlin first acquired telephone service. But I think the fine quality of the photo print as well as the classy imprint suggests a date of mid-1890s.

 

 

 

 

So the question is, were these two men the same person? Their faces certainly share similar characteristics, though nearly every man in imperial Germany had a mustache with a Wilhelmine curl. But Willy Metz, the postcard trumpeter, looks to be in his mid-30s while the Berlin trumpeter is surely late 40ish or even 50+. Willy's postcard is dated 1906 and the cabinet card is from maybe 1895, so unless the Kaiser had a time machine, it doesn't add up.

Maybe there is another reason for the resemblance.

This next part of my story demands a soundtrack.
So as you continue reading,
listen to this rendition
of the "Rote Funken-Marsch"
composed by Hermann Kipper
and Stabstrompeter Reinhold Fellenberg in 1890.

 

 

A few years ago I acquired a stereo view photo that shows a German band that is not in Germany. It is captioned:

8397. The Royal German Band, German Village, Midway Plaisance,
Columbian Exposition. 

The photographer's name is printed along the side and on the back:

copyright 1893, by B. W, Kilburn.

Photographed and Published by
B. W. Kilburn – Littleton, N. H.

The photo was not taken in New Hampshire, but in Chicago, Illinois at the World's Columbian Exposition. This enormous spectacle was designed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492, though belatedly a year later. It opened on 1 May 1893 and closed six months later on 30 October. 

 

The exposition was built on the shore of Lake Michigan at Chicago's Jackson Park. It occupied 690 acres (2.8 km²), and featured almost 200 new (but deliberately temporary) buildings of neoclassical architecture connected by a network of walkways, gardens, canals and lagoons. Forty-six countries including Germany sent representatives to exhibit and present their nation's finest art, dazzling innovations, and most appealing culture to the citizens of the United States. 

 

In the summer of 1893, 27,300,000 visitors came to see the wonders of the Chicago World's Fair.  And Mr. Kilburn's company took a picture of every single one of them. The wonders that is! For a small price you could enjoy a 3-D experience touring the great Columbian Exposition in fabulous sepia tone.

 

The publisher of this image was one of the most successful American entrepreneurs in this unusual photographic medium. Benjamin West Kilburn (1827–1909) was both a photographer and businessman whose factory in 1893 could print 23,000 "views" a day. By the opening of the fair Kilburn was already well-known for his popular stereoscopic photos of American and Canadian landscapes. His exclusive contract to record the exhibits and people of the Columbian World's Fair was a major achievement, and during the short duration of the fair Kilburn's photographers produced hundreds of unique photos of this grand event. 

 

 

Looking closely at the Royal German Band we see 23 bandsmen standing in a double row in front of a Germanic timber frame castle, not unlike something Walt Disney would create for a theme park. All the men are dressed in the same uniform that my trumpeters wear and every man sports an upturned Prussian mustache. Musicians at each end hold natural trumpets with Prussian banners but those in the center hold swords. Casually piled on the ground are some other brass instruments. 

The German village was designed by a Berlin architect and funded by German banks, reportedly costing $1,200,000. All the timbers for the "castle" were cut in Germany and shipped to Chicago along with 23 German workmen to supervise its assembly at the fair. The "village" was supposedly staffed with German "peasants" in folk costumes, serving traditional Old World cuisine, and displaying various German regional crafts. It was pointedly designed to appeal to German-Americans and promote German culture.

 

The so-called "Royal German Band" was intended to be the headline entertainment for attracting visitors to the German Village. On one poster for the fair a gallant German cavalry trumpeter announces that there will be two concerts daily. 

 

 

1893 Chicago World's Fair
German Village Poster
Source: The Internet

The Royal German Band was described in newspaper reports as having 100 men selected from several imperial military bands around the country. Each was chosen by examination of their musicianship, and perhaps even their height, as some newspapers gleefully reported that every bandsman was over six foot tall. In fact there were two bands, one of 55 infantry musicians and the other of 25 cavalry musicians. The infantry band used woodwind, brass, percussion, and even string instruments with a couple of double basses. Their uniforms were of Prussian blue. The cavalry band needed only brass and percussion instruments and wore white uniforms in the style of the Garde du Corps, just like the trumpeter on the poster and the musicians pictured on Kilburn's stereoview card. 

Buffalo NY Sonntagspost
4 June 1893

 

The infantry band was directed by Kapellemeister Eduard Ruscheweyh and the cavalry band by "Stabs-trompeter" Gustav Herold. Both men came with impressive credentials as musicians and composers. Apparently a good number of the bandsmen, including Ruscheweyh, were no longer in military service but had been recruited to leave their civilian musical posts to undertake this concert tour of America. 

 

In 1893 Kaiser Wilhelm II was striving to make Germany a more dominant player in international politics. The German Empire was actually quite young having been declared in January 1871 after the victory of the German confederated states in the Franco-Prussian War. The Kaiser and his ministers were then not burdened by the thorny problems they would face twenty years later. A world's fair in Chicago was considered a perfect opportunity to promote German prosperity and leadership, especially because the United States had a very large population of German immigrants. When plans for the fair's German Village were announced the Royal German Band received generous coverage in German language newspapers all across the country. Several papers, like the Buffalo, NY, Sonntagspost printed woodblock portraits of the two bandmasters, Ruscheweyh and Herold, with detailed description of the band's artistic merit. Oddly there is no mention of whether the band ever performed on horseback. Traveling with German horses or hiring American horses may have been too costly for even the Kaiser.

The 1890s was a great age for band music and German military band music was just as popular as German symphonic music. Most rosters of American orchestras and military bands were filled with German surnames. Likewise many famous conductors and bandleaders were also German or Austrian nationals. Musical training in Germany was considered second to none, and many young American musicians dreamed of attending a Berlin music conservatory to complete their education. In 1893 many musical instruments were relatively new German inventions. They were manufactured in German workshops that strived to perfect every instrument from harmonica to bass tuba.

 

 

Trumpeters from the German Village Band
at the 1893 Columbian Expostion in Chicago
Source: The Internet

 

When the Royal German Band arrived in New York in April 1893, they were initially detained on Ellis Island as their entry into the United States was challenged by the fledgling musician's union of New York City which objected to foreign workers taking jobs away from American citizens. The German bandsmen were understandably very indignant to be subjected to a law intended to protect common laborers and skilled workers from foreign immigrants. They argued that they were artists who should be granted a temporary entertainer's visa to perform as a group. An impromptu concert was quickly set up for the immigration commissioner in New York who, after hearing the band's virtuosity, overruled the protest and allowed the German band to continue on to Chicago. But not before they played a few warmup concerts in Madison Square Garden.

 

Brooklyn NY Standard Union
24 April 1893

On 24 April 1893 a Brooklyn reviewer in the Standard-Union praised the band as:

 

"the most interesting and enjoyable entertainments ever given... There is a becoming military air about them. They wear the German uniform, and the glory of their great nationality is manifest in their buttons and pose and music. We may convey an idea of their richness of variety, their strength and softness and the gorgeous sweep of their programme, if we say they mingle the severe art of Theodore Thomas with the popular energy of the late Patrick Gilmore. Something of the immense inspiration and grandeur and picturesque reminiscence and ambition of the gigantic empire founded by Prince Bismarck thrills in the atmosphere of this martial music. In part second, last night, the most unique and fascinating feature was—
    a. Salute to the Emperor.
    b. Old German Rondeau.
Arranged for mediaeval trumpets and tympani.... J. Kosleck.
It must have been very dull and thin blood that did not warm to the weird and searching splendors of the trumpets."

 

 

[ I should note that Theodore Thomas (1835–1905) was a celebrated German-American violinist and orchestra conductor, formerly of the New York Philharmonic and later the founder of the Chicago Symphony. Patrick Gilmore (1829–1892) was a well-known n Irish-American bandleader and composer who settled in Boston and established one of the most successful concert bands in America and popularized "monster concerts" of massed brass bands. ]

 

This enthusiastic response for the natural "mediaeval" trumpets was repeated by many other reviewers at their concerts.

 

Gustav Herold, Leader of German Cavalry Band
at German Village, Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893
Source: Portrait Types Of The Midway Plaisance
by Frederic Ward Putnam, 1894

 

The bandsman mentioned in reports as responsible for this musical novelty was Stabstrompeter Gustav Herold. I had great hopes that he was the trumpeter in my Berlin photo. However as I have learned over the years to never give up on research, I found his picture in a wonderful souvenir album called Portrait Types Of The Midway Plaisance by Frederic Ward Putnam. Published in 1894, the book is preserved at the Internet Archive. It's obvious that though the two men wear the same uniform they are not the same person. Gustav is younger and his mustache has less dark wax. In the following summer this portrait was used to promote the sale of another photo collection.

St. Paul, MN Globe
11 June 1894

After the Chicago World's Fair closed at the end of October, the Royal German Bands took their time returning to Germany by playing concerts in other major cities in America. Reviews in Louisville, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Boston, St. Louis, and Philadelphia praised the bands' precision, dynamic range and made note of the cavalry trumpeters. Programs were varied and featured band arrangements of orchestral music by Richard Wagner, Franz Suppe, Johann Strauss Jr., with an occasional Italian opera overture too. This review from a November 1893 concert in Boston is typical:

 

The best brass and reed band playing is oppressive in Music Hall, but it should be said to the credit of these organizations that much of the oppressiveness is removed by the rare accuracy of their work. That begin and end with the exactness of the best symphony orchestra, they produce a gradually increased or diminished tone with splendid steadiness, and they show in all other respects a technical mastery that commands admiration. The playing by the clarinets of the violin figure in the "Tannhäuser" overture was wonderfully fine. An interesting performance was that by the cavalry band on old-style trumpets. The scales of these instruments do not permit much of a melody and the piece played was a sort of fanfare. To hear the trumpet tone, pure, unalloyed with any of the modern improvements, was a great satisfaction.
                                            [Boston Evening Transcript, 1 December 1893]

The natural trumpets that Gustav Herold brought to Chicago were instruments that came with a very long heritage in Germanic music, but they were an unusual and unfamiliar sound to American audiences. I'm sure they were chosen for their brilliant noise and spectacular effect. A loud flourish by trumpeters dressed in such grand uniforms will instantly grab the attention of any crowd. 

 

But I suspect that the band's use of natural trumpets also impressed the audiences at home too, and inspired many imitators in Germany and Austria, especially with female brass players. You can see bands with these same natural trumpets on postcards I featured in my stories: Ladies with Brass, Even More Ladies with Brass, and Still More Ladies with Brass. That kind of musical fad had to start somewhere, and I think the trumpeters of the Royal German Bands of 1893 were a major influence in how brass bands evolved in the empires of central Europe.

 

Though I'm disappointed that my Berlin trumpeter is not Stabstrompeter Gustav Herold, nonetheless I believe that this bandsman must be standing in Kilburn's stereoview photo. Maybe the man on the far left? There's something about his mustache that makes him seem familiar. :–)

But what about the Leipzig trumpeter, Willy Metz?
Was he a member of the Garde du Corps cavalry band?

The answer is Yes and No.
Apparently he blew his trumpet
in several military bands,
and had a uniform for each one.

He also seems to have owned a time machine too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 1900s music hall entertainers in Europe and especially in Germany often produced promotional postcards of themselves in multiple scenes of their different stage characters or skits. But Willy Metz paid extra to have his postcard printed in color. It shows him in a center vignette portrait, sans mustache, and then in four different full height views portraying different types of trumpeters. The caption identifies him as:

Willy Metz
Gesangs und Instrumental - Humorist
~
Singing and Instrumental - Humorist

The postcard was never mailed but the publisher was Dr. Trenkler & Co. of Leipzig, a very large graphics firm that printed thousands of catalogs, brochures, advertising material and postcards. Many of the German postcards in my collection were produced by this company.

 

Willy Metz's four characters are each neatly identified in small type. Beginning on the upper left is Willy as a Stabstrompeter a Totenkopf-Husaren (Leib–Rgt No. 1) ~ Staff trumpeter of the Deathhead Hussars. His wears a uniform of another elite light cavalry of the German Empire which was topped by cylindrical wool hat displaying the distinctive skull and crossbones of this unit. The connection to murderous pirates is intentional. Willy also holds a long cavalry saber and a piston valve trumpet. 

 

On the upper right Willy is dressed in more austere dark uniform with a longer coat and trousers legs decorated with a row of large buttons. His hat is quite tall like a top hat but not cylindrical. (Here's a bit of language trivia, Zylinder is the German word for a silk top hat.) In his left hand is, I think, a natural trumpet which is a bugle without valves. The caption describes him as a Lützower Jäger, Eine Episode a. d. Freiheitskriegen, 1813-15. This cavalryman represented a trumpeter from the Lützow Free Corps, a volunteer force of the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was named after its commander, Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow. The soldiers were famously known as “Lützower Jäger“ or “Schwarze Jäger“ (“Black Hunters”).

 

 

The character in the lower left with his high knee boots was also a cavalryman but his broad-brimmed hat with feather plume, lace collar and cuffs mark him as a trumpeter from an earlier century. His caption reads; Wallenstein Trompeter, Episode a. d. 30 jähr Kriege. The name Wallenstein refers to Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein (1583–1634), a Bohemian military leader and statesman who was the supreme commander of the armies of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II fighting for the Catholic side during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).  The instrument Willy holds is another natural trumpet which would have been appropriate in the 17th century. It is like the so-called "mediaeval" trumpets used by the Royal German Band. 

 

The last musician is dressed in blue uniform tunic with red trousers and kepi hat. His trumpet hangs behind his left shoulder. The caption reads: Fremdenlegionär, Actualle Scene a. d. Franz. Legion. This trumpeter was in the French Foreign Legion, presumably representing a soldier the then recent, but brief, Franco-Prussian War which began on Jul 19, 1870 and finished on May 10, 1871. This war ended the reign of Napoleon III, and out of the French defeat came a new Third French Republic. And for the victors, it unified the German states into an empire and expanded Germany's territory with the acquisition of the French border states  of Alsace-Lorraine.

 

With five military characters, including his Garde du Corps Stabstrompeter, Willy Metz was obviously portraying various heroic events in German history through music. We are left to wonder exactly what trumpet calls he played for each trumpeter, but as he described himself as a singer as well as an instrumentalist, I think there were definitely songs for each trumpeter. The piston valve trumpet would be the most modern instrument and could easily play more complicated tunes than the natural trumpets. What's interesting from a brass player's perspective is that Willy was described as a virtuoso of the "Piston" or piston-valve trumpet which was not the dominant instrument in Germany. German and Austrian bands used trumpets with rotary valves. The French and British players used piston valve instruments.

 

This second postcard put Willy Metz into a different profession than a military bandsman which I had mistakenly assumed from his  1906 postcard. I now needed to find out who or what the Leipziger Krystallpalast- Sängers were. It turns out that they were an octet of men who had been performing at the Krystall-Palast music hall in Leipzig since 1889. 

 

 

Leipziger Tageblatt u Anzeiger
22 August 1903

 

An advert in the August 1903 Leipziger Tageblatt, listed their individual names along with their specialties. There were two tenors, Karl Schewitzer and Franz Jentzsch, who were also humorists, actors, and instrumentalists. Two basses, Max Schmidt and Richard Klein, who also performed as humorists and instrumentalists. Klein was also a Drastischer Komicker and Grotesktänzer, Drastic comic and grotesque dancer. Alberti Geras was a humorist and a Rezitator or reciter, as well as a character actor, which I interpret as he told funny stories or read poetry in funny German dialects. Arthur Delitzsch was a "phenom Mezzosopran" with a specialty in "transformation" meaning he was a female impersonator. Edmund Bischoff was the choral director, pianist, and managing director of the group. And Will Metz was the "Pistonvirtuos", humorist, and actor with his own repertoire. I bet their rehearsals were fun to watch too.

 

 

Leipziger Krystallpalast- Sängers c.1900
Source: Wikipedia

 

The Leipziger Krystallpalast- Sängers were a "Herrensänger-Gesellschaft" or a Gentlemen's Singing Society founded in 1889 by the folksinger Richard Klein who is pictured along with his colleagues on this postcard image from the group's Wikipedia page. Willy Metz is at top right. They performed regularly in Leipzig but I don't believe they were a full-time professional ensemble that performed on the theater circuits. I think they were more like local semi-professional singers/actors who depended on other employment for their livelihood and played in their group for fun. 

 

Willy's unique musical act was surely inspired by the heritage of German military trumpeters. While it's possible he served as a regimental trumpeter, I have a feeling that he was only a talented musician who used his passion for history to create a clever entertainment. 

 

The Leipziger Krystallpalast- Sängers stayed together for nearly 50 years, disbanding in 1938 after the death of one their members. Evidently they were very popular in Leipzig and produced almost 200 78 records for several German labels. Several are preserved on YouTube and listening to them I can hear the charming folk element of their music along with simple accompaniments of piano and a few brass instruments. Though I do not understand the stories told in original Saxonische accent or, even less, laugh at the jokes, I can easily imagine how the gentle humor and proud Saxony heritage was presented. .

 

Courtesy of YouTube channel
– 78 revolutions (RPM) –
here is a recording of the Leipziger Krystallpalast-Sänger
performing Husarentrompeter Karl - sächsischer Vortrag.
It was recorded on 15 August 1911
and begins with a trumpet fanfare
that I feel certain was played by Willy Metz.

 

 

***

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

In 1893 and 1906, the sound of a trumpet evoked different feelings than how it is used in modern music today. In earlier times trumpets were directly associated with royal and military service. Any important event for a monarch always required trumpet fanfares. Composers used trumpets to paint musical pictures of majestic nobility and depict the furious battle of armies. Soldiers marched to the brassy blare of trumpets and drums, measured their days in camp listening to bugle calls, and followed the orders of battle from a signal trumpeter's alarm. 

In Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany the sound of natural trumpets conveyed patriotism and national heritage. The flashy music stirred emotions and thrilled people who heard it, much more than fancy Prussian uniforms and splendid eagle helmets could do. I think Stabstrompeters Gustav Herold and Willy Metz understood that trumpets had a special power to command our attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where all hats are half-off this weekend.