Going Rococo

Velvet coats with fancy embroidery.
Frilly shirts with lace on the collars.
And curly mops of hair. 

They're not
John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
But they were the first
to use hair for an artistic statement.

Some groups went for an extra long coiffure
with tresses heaped onto shoulders. 

Others took a more conservative approach
 with a restrained style suitable for all occasions.

And others wanted to appeal to the youths
by choosing matching curls
that would do any mother proud.

Today I present four musical groups
that copied fashion styles from centuries past
in order to set themselves apart.

Bad hair was good.

My first example was evidently the very first ensemble of its kind to affect a return to the olden days. These five men called themselves the Original Elite Orchester „Roccoco”, directed by Herr P. Schmeida. They were from Germany, or maybe Austria. and chose costumes imitating the apparel of gentlemen of the 18th century. Each one is slightly different but they all wear velvet knee breeches, justacorps coats embroidered with silks and gold sequins, contrasting long waistcoats, and white shirts with frilled collars and cuffs. All topped off by a curly white wig that to a modern eye resembles a mop head. Today I found a very similar outfit for sale on Etsy for $1,349.25. But that's without the wig.

The group is pictured without instruments but I suspect they played string instruments and perhaps included a piano. The term Rococo refers to a style of architecture, art, and decoration that dates roughly from the death of the French King Louis XIV in 1715 to the French Revolution of 1789. According to its Wikipedia entry, "It is characterized by extensive ornamentation, fluid curves, asymmetry, and a smaller scale designed to foster intimacy. .... Rococo fashion was based on extravagance, elegance, refinement and decoration. ... These fashions spread beyond the royal court into the salons and cafés of the ascendant bourgeoisie. The exuberant, playful, elegant style of decoration and design that we now call 'Rococo' was then known as le style rocaille, le style moderne, le gout."

The Rococo era was very influential in art and architecture, but other terms, were used for the music of this period. In France it was called Style Galant, described by Voltaire as music which “aims to please." French composers Jean Philippe Rameau, Louis-Claude Daquin and François Couperin were popular in this era. In Germany it was called Empfindsamer Stil (sensitive style) which inspired German composers like Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, both sons of the great titan of Baroque Music – Johann Sebastian Bach. 

This postcard of the Original Elite Orchester „Roccoco” has a stamp and postmark from Denmark on 23 January 1904.    

* * *

This next ensemble is considerably larger with twenty musicians posted outdoors in a garden or park setting. According to the postcard's caption they are: 

Madame H. E. Angless's Pompadour Ladies' Orchestra
permanent address:  78, Norwood Road, London, S. E.

The players in this all-women group are dressed in long, wide gowns, possibly with interior structural support, and heavy white wigs, most appearing to be identical in shape. They have the usual string instruments as well as a flute, two clarinets, trombone, tuba, and drums in the back row and two cornetists sitting on the grass in front. Though not identified as pretending to be from the Rococo era, their attire is pretty close.

The woman standing center, left of the harp, holding a baton is the conductor, Madame Harry Edward Angless, also known as Emily Angless (nee Leer). She had previously organized a Anglo-Swiss Ladies' Orchestra in the 1890s which performed in quasi-Swiss costumes. Though the Pompadour ladies are all beautifully matched in fancy French costume, I can't help but observe that several players have noticeably masculine faces. Maybe it's the light or the half-tone print, but the tuba player on the right, the double bassist on the left, and a few other musicians sure look like they could use a shave.   

This postcard was sent from London on 30 March 1905 to Mrs Beales of Horley, familiar to people of 2026 as being next to Gatwick airport.

"Oh, listen to the Band"
That is what we were
doing last Saturday.
Sorry you were not
there.  Hope you are
 quite well.                
AF.    HP.

I found only a few British newspaper references to the Pompadour Ladies Orchestra. The group seems to have started around 1904 and ended in 1908, mostly playing variety shows that included other acts like comedians, acrobats, and magicians. One of the places where they performed over a few seasons was at the Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth on the North Sea coast. This next postcard shows a long pier that projects over a very sandy beach and an impressive palace at the end. It certainly looks suitable for a Rococo style ensemble. The garden in the foreground might well have been the location for the postcard photo of the Pompadour Ladies Orchestra.

Britannia Pier, Great Yarmouth, UK, circa 1911
Source: Wikipedia

The Britannia Pier is still in operation today but it has endured a difficult history. It first opened in July 1858 and was originally 700 feet long. However in 1859 the pier was reduced by about 80 feet when during a terrible storm two ships crashed into the structure. In 1868 another storm again reduced the length. The remains of the old pier were demolished in 1899 and replaced by a new 810 foot pier in 1901. The Grand Pavilion, seen above, opened on 21 June 1902. 

Britannia Pier Pavilion, Great Yarmouth
by destroyed by fire on 17 April 1914
Source: Wikipedia

Sadly this new Grand Pavilion was destroyed in a fire on 22 December 1909. A replacement pavilion was quickly constructed and completed in 1910, but this too was ravaged by an arson fire on 17 April 1914. The arsonists were two militant suffragettes, Hilda Burkitt and Florence Tunks, both of whom received prison sentences for their incendiary protest. Once again a third pavilion was hastily constructed and opened on 27 July 1914, just one day before the start of World War One.

The pier's Floral Hall Ballroom opened in May 1928 but was destroyed by fire in August 1932. The pier was closed during World War II to prevent enemy troops using the pier as a landing station and did not reopen until 1947. A new Grand Ballroom had opened in 1933, but it too was destroyed by fire in April 1954, along with the third pavilion. 

The current Britannia Pier pavilion opened on 27 June 1958 and became home to the Pavilion Theatre, now called the Britannia Pier Theatre. However the ballroom (called the Ocean Ballroom from 1947) was never replaced.

* * *

My third time-traveling musical group are seven men known as the:

Rokoko Salon-Orchester
Direktion: Fried. Bauer

The men wear clothing similar to the costumes worn by the Elite Orchester Roccoco but less flashy and with white stockings. Their wigs are also similar but with less curl. They have four string instruments, including a cello and double bass, a flute, and a piano hidden behind the two men on the right. The instrument we know today as a piano was created by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Italy in 1700. He called it a pianoforte (soft loud) later known as the fortepiano (loud soft). These first pianos were constructed of wood much like a harpsichord. But a pianoforte keyboard triggered small hammers to strike the strings with dynamics unlike the way a harpsichord keyboard flips wooden jacks which pluck the strings for a softer uniform sound. In any case I don't think this group is using a historically correct instrument but instead has a kind of upright piano of a later 19th century design.

The postcard was sent from Hannover, Germany on 8 November 1913 to someone in Bordeaux, France.    

* * *

My final costumed group is five men who called themselves the:

Farinelli-Ensemble
Sächsische Konzert un Volkssänger. 
Vielseitigstes Instrumental-, Vokal-
und Schauspiel-Ensemble der Welt
~

Farinelli Ensemble

Saxon concert and folk singers.

The world's most versatile instrumental, vocal,

and theatrical ensemble. 

The men are wearing matching long gowns, which to my eye look like women's nightgowns, and curly feminine wigs. One man holds a girl's doll which the others seem focused on.   

The group's name refers to Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (1705–1782), a celebrated Italian vocalist of the 18th century who performed under the stage name Farinelli. He was a singer and composer whose castrato soprano voice had an incredible range of over three octaves. Farinelli is considered one of the greatest and most influential singers in the history of opera. 

Presumably some of the men in the Farinelli Ensemble were countertenors who specialized in a high treble style which with a standard men's voices of tenor, baritone, and bass would give their group the same quality as if they had women or boys singing. I can't explain the feminine nature of their costumes since I have no idea what kind of music or comic skits they performed. But I think it's fair to say that their era was filled with lots of rude humor and racist characterizations that we would find vulgar and hateful today.

Their postcard was sent from Bischofswerda, a small town in eastern Germany at the western edge of Upper Lusatia in Saxony, on 6 April 1903.

These ensembles were more about making music fun. Their costumes served to give them a hook for an audience that they hoped would stay longer for the music. 

It still works today and I found a great video to illustrate this story. If you went to Wien/Vienna in 2026 you might hear a concert by the Wiener Mozart Konzert which performs in beautiful period costumes. (Though their instruments are modern and not historically accurate for the music.) Technically Mozart's music is of the Classical era rather than the Rococo but he is reputed to enjoy fine clothing which was inspired by the Rococo fashions. This band sounds good even in wigs.

 

I should add that many years ago
I performed on that same stage in Wien.
I was on tour with a small American chamber orchestra,
but my costume was the standard musician's uniform
of white tie and black tailcoat.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where it's costume day for everyone.

   

A Lady from Baltimore

 

This is Ann.
She had this photo taken
in Baltimore, Maryland.
She paid 25¢ for four.
Plus tax.

She represents an example of what I call "people of the shadows"—the subjects who sat still long enough for a  camera to capture their likeness during the first decades of photography. The alchemy of early photographs—daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and ferrotypes, that is tintypes like Ann's photo, translated light that went through a camera's lens into subtle tones of waxy whites, chalky grays, and dense blacks. These phototypes lacked the chemistry to record true colors, though occasionally a photographer, as in Ann's tintype,  would apply little tints of red to cheeks or lips when processing the image. The general effect of these early photo processes created portraits of people in somber clothing seemingly surrounded by dim backgrounds, hence "people of the shadows." Nonetheless these early photo processes could achieve a remarkable clarity that rivals modern photographs.

But the other reason I call them people of the shadows is that these early phototypes rarely display any information about the subjects. People are usually anonymous, their names, dates, and location unknown. The first generations of fragile daguerreotypes and ambrotypes came in protective wooden cases that often have no imprints for a photographer's name or place of business. Tintypes, being made of thin iron sheet, were more durable photos but often became separated from their paper envelopes and few have marks for names or dates scratched onto the metal backs.

So without good clues to figure out the basics of who, when, and where, these photos can be a very challenging if not impossible puzzles to solve.  

Ann's portrait is an exception.
It contains a surprising amount of information.
Yet, as I will explain,
she still remains partly in the shadows.

  

This is the full image of her photo scanned without any digital correction. Her photo is pasted into a paper mount the same size as a carte de visite, 3 7/8" x 2 3/8" with her face centered in an elegant embossed oval cartouche pattern. The tintype is much smaller and rectangular. It is a  called a 1/16th plate size about 1 7/8" high and 1 5/8" wide. In the upper right is a signature which we will examine in a moment,         

The back has a full printed advertisement for the photographer.

FROM
The Original 25 cent
Gem Picture Gallery
No. 9 N. Gay Street
G. W, Hewitt & Co.
4 of this style Pictures.    _    25 Cents.
Large size Photographs,    _    _    $1.50
Duplicates,    _    _    _    _    _    _    1.00
Cartes de Viste, Per Doz.    _    _        2.00

GEO. W. HEWITT
Manufacturer of
Square and Oval Gilt Frames.
Looking Glass Mirrors,
Bracket Tables, &c.
also on hand a fine assortment of
Albums, Stereoscopes and Views,
Engravings. Figures, &c.,  50 per
cent [c]heaper than any other estab-
lishment [in] the city.  Pictures of all
kinds copied at the shortest notice.
No. 9 Gay Street,
Photograph & Frame Gallery

Mr. Hewitt's advertisement is printed on a separate paper that was applied over the photo. It shows through as an eight-sided outline of the metal plate. "Gem" tintypes, ½" x 1", are very small, hardly bigger than a postage stamp, but I think this photo was offered as a gem and was produced in the same manner using a camera with four lens. Here is an illustration of a similar camera featured in an 1872 handbook on ferrotype photography. The tintype metal plate was inserted wet with emulsion into the camera back and when exposed the four lens created four images at one time. After developing and fixing the plate was cut into four individual photos.    

The Climax Camera, No 43, fited with four ¼ lenses
Source: The Ferrotype and how to Make it 
by Edward M. Estabrooke 

Here is a second camera with nine lens for making smaller photos. The process could produce nine duplicates of a single sitting, or nine separate images opening each lens one at a time.

The Success Camera O, fitted with nine 1/9th 
and four 1/4th lenses
Source: The Ferrotype and how to Make it
by Edward M. Estabrooke

What makes this photo special is a blue 2¢ U. S. Internal Revenue stamp in the upper corner on the back of the tintype's paper mount. It was affixed before Mr. Hewitt pasted on his gallery's advertisement on top of it. Then he marked it with a rubberstamp date: Feb 17, 1866. 

It was a Saturday. On this day former Confederate general Robert E. Lee was in Washington, D. C. to testify before a Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction. The committee members had tough questions for him regarding Southern attitudes to war debts, the status of freedmen, and the conditions of reconstruction.

This date was just 8 months and 22 days after the end of America's terrible Civil War. Though the world was now moving on, most Americans were still divided by the horrendous assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 and the complex political mess it provoked in the postwar period. This blue tax stamp was a small remanent of four years of the war's hardships as it was first introduced in the Revenue Act of 1862 to help the Federal government fund the war through an excise tax on a wide variety of goods, services and legal dealings. 

Photographs were still a modern novelty when the war started. As tintypes and carte de visites became more popular due to their cheaper price the Internal Revenue department passed a 'photograph tax' in August 1864 that required photographers to pay a tax on the sale of their products. This proprietary tax was applied to several other widely used products, such as cotton, tobacco and alcohol. Even though the war was officially ended on 26 May 1865 the tax had persisted, since, of course, the Federal government still needed to pay its debts. Obviously this still upset many people so Congress repealed the tax on 1 August 1866, two years exactly after it was imposed.

Mr. Hewitt was one of Baltimore's businessmen to take exception to this lingering tax. So he ran advertisements in local newspapers explaining why he need to raise prices.

Baltimore Sun
29 January 1866

 Card to the Public

              Having been the first to introduce to the public
            of Baltimore Four Gem Pictures for 25 cents,
            making our calculations for 6 per cent. ad valo-
            rem tax, we are now authorized by the commis-
            sioners of internal revenue to affix to each and
            every card issued from our establishment a two
            cent stamp, which will be a stamp tax of 32 per
            cent.  Not wishing to vary from our regular
            prices, we will still continue to take
                       Four Gun Pictures for 25 Cents.
            But we will be compelled to charge our cus-
            tomers 10 cents extra for stamping.
              We have made no alteration in the price of our
            large pictures, as 5 per cent. is all the govern-
            ment requires on them, but 32 per cent. being
            more than our net profits on our small pictures
            our customers will have to pay it.
              We cordially thank the citizens of Baltimore
            for the kind patronage they have so liberally ex-
            tended to us.  We will hereafter show our grati-
            tude by furnishing them with pictures that can-
            not be surpassed by any other Establishment of
            the kind in the city.
                          Geo. W. Hewitt & Co..
                           No. 9 North Gay street.

So when Ann bought a set of four portrait Gems, she paid a total of 35¢ which was a not insubstantial amount consider that many workers in Maryland earned 10¢<15¢ an hour in 1866.  

The photographer George Washington Hewitt was born on the 4th of July 1838 in Baltimore, the son of John Hill Hewitt (1801—1890) a noted poet and prolific composer and author. Though he was from New York City, Hewitt the elder made his career in the southern states and became a rival of both the poet Edgar Allen Poe and the song writer Stephen Foster. 

His son George W. Hewitt seems to have started his business as a carver and gilder in the late 1850s with an address at No. 23 West Fayette street in Baltimore. In May of 1861, just a month after the Civil War began, he ran a newspaper ad that showed he was a bit of an entrepreneur.  

WAR !–WAR !–WAR !– INTENSE EXCITEMENT.—Great Sacrifice in beautiful GILT OVAL FRAMES, for Photographs.  Your choice for One Dollar, at the Original One Dollar Frame Store.

 

Baltimore Sun
23 May 1861

Note the other promotions for a book entitled "The Soldier's Guide" which was marketed as a useful military handbook to young men who were volunteering for the Federal army.

In 1863 Hewitt was listed at 9 N. Gay street in the Baltimore city directory under "Looking Glass and Picture Frame Makers." In his advertisements this address was his store while his factory was on West Fayette street. In May 1863 he included a photographer Mr. W. E. Cook who "occupies a portion of the same store for the sale of Cabinet Photographs, a new style of picture, taken from original Oil Paintings in France and England." By the following year the partnership with Mr. Cook seems finished but Hewitt then begins offering his patrons Gem ferrotypes and larger photos as his gallery of frames and mirrors. 

Baltimore Sun
14 May 1863

By 1867 George W. Hewitt is no longer residing in Baltimore, but has moved south to Staunton, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. He sets up a decorator's shop dealing in wall paper and upholstery. Occasionally he also tuned and repaired pianos, but as far as I can determine he never took up photography again. He died in Staunton in 1906 at age 68. He was remembered with an obituary in both Staunton and Baltimore newspapers. 

Now it's time to look at a signature 
What name can you read?

I think it spells  Ann L Polona or Poloma. The short first name is written with a downward flourish that I think is just decorative but it could be Anny L. The surname is very unusual and I have tried countless different interpretations of the letters. The shape of the letters conform to cursive handwriting standards of 19th century English and the capitals A, L, P are quite consistent.  According to Google's AI,  Polona has "Slavic and Eastern European roots related to Poland", while Poloma is a Spanish name derived from the Spanish word paloma, meaning "dove" 

But I can't find her. No one named Ann L Polona/Poloma is listed in any official records or city directories from anywhere in the United States, much less Baltimore in 1866. Her name is not found in any newspaper archives either. All I could find were a few people with variant spelled surnames but those people lived in latter decades. It is a curious place to put a penciled signature curved around to fit the corner. Perhaps it's not the name of the woman photographed in 1866 but the name of a recipient she gave it to. Or maybe it's the name of a collector who bought the photo in 1946 or 2006. Who knows? I really can't tell. 

It's frustrating to have a perfect trifecta of antique photo information on name, place, and date and not be able to confirm a the most important identification—the subject's name. Of course women's names are always a challenge to research since they usually, but not always, adopt a new surname on marriage. Is there a Mr. Polona/Poloma? I've looked, and looked again, and still fail to find anyone who would fit the other facts from this tintype from Baltimore.

But I can do one thing more. I can flip the photo from its positive mirror image created by the tintype process into her real face which we would have seen when Ann visited Mr. Hewitt's gallery in February 1866. Somehow that lightens her features to bring her a little bit out of the shadows that conceal her identity. 

She appears to be an attractive mature young woman, late 20s or mid 30s, with beautiful dark eyes and high cheekbones. Her hair is dark, too, and pulled tight back in the feminine style of this era, but I detect a hint of wave or curl. Below her ears are what looks like oval earrings but I think they are some kind of fastener that holds her hair. A locket tied tight around her neck is large and could have a carved design. It might hold a small photo, perhaps a picture of a husband or sweetheart. In 1866 that could be a treasured memento of a beloved lost in the war. Which may explain her serious expression. Yet she doesn't look so much sad as thoughtful. What is she thinking about?

Mr. Hewitt's gallery at No. 9 N. Gay street in Baltimore was in the city's central business district. It was less than a half mile to his frame factory at No. 23 West Fayette. Baltimore's city hall was just a block away, and the city's ship docks were only 4 blocks south. Also very close were a couple of major theatres that offered all kinds of entertainment, even during the war, including minstrel shows, melodramas, and opera. These traveling troupes would play in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore, too. Many included on their playbills performers from Europe—England, France, Germany, Italy, even Spain or South America. 

It seems quite possible that Ann L Polona/Poloma might be connected to one of these touring theatrical or opera companies. Her name, like many entertainers of the day, could be a stage name, invented to sound more artistic. Since entertainers lived in hotels without any settled residence, they were rarely recorded in census reports or city directories. Their names might be attached to a newspaper review if they were a star, but not if they were a supporting actor or the spouse of an entertainer. It's only a guess but imagination is all I have left to answer the question of her identity.

Sometimes people of the shadows leave only the essence of their humanity. The details of their lives and loves are unknown. Their past and future forever concealed. Their relations with other people a mystery. Yet their sepia tone photograph presents us with a face that makes us wonder. Who was this person? What were they like? Why did they pose for this picture? 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where fine portraits are a dime a dozen.

Ladies with Brass - A to Z

 

Musical fads come and go, depending on the public's fickle penchant for new things. This postcard of the Damen-Trompeter-Corps „Ariosta“, directed by Herr E. Behncken, was once a type of musical ensemble that everyone recognized because they had heard one at their local music hall, beer garden, or city park bandstand. The six women and four men who played in this brass band were professional musicians who promoted their group with photo postcards of the band. Unlike a traditional band of just men, these Damen ensembles went out of their way to market how women were the principle performers. As proof of their popularity, I must have several hundred postcards just like this group in my collection. Today I'd like to present a small sample of these very brassy women A to Z. Sort of.

  

In the last decade of the 19th century and first decades of the 20th, women's bands and orchestras were very widespread thorughout central Europe, mainly in the German speaking regions, which in the time before the First World War was a much larger region than Europe in our 21st century. There were Damen Streich Orchester~Women's string orchestras, Damen Blasorchester~Women's wind bands; and Damen Trompeter Corps~Women's trumpet ensembles. The last one is my focus today. The Ariosta Trompeterinnen played several different valved brass instruments like tubas and trumpets, but the Trompeter-Corps in their name refers to the three natural trumpets seen standing on their bells at the front of the band. These instruments were a type of bugle without valves that was little different from the baroque trumpets that were played in miliary bands and royal fanfares.

The Ariosta band's postcard was never posted but we know it is an official postcard based on its printed description from multiple languages. (Extra points if you can name them all!)   A rubber stamp imprint for Karl Mohr's Conzerthaus  Werth in Duisburg indicates the venue where they performed. Duisburg is on the Rhine River in western Germany, north of Düsseldorf and not far from the border with the Netherlands.

* * *

This next group has a similar makeup of six young women and four men. They are the Österreichisches Damen-Trompeter-Corps „Bohème“ directed by Herr A. Lohmann. Their name indicates that they are from Austria, which at the time was part of an immense Austria-Hungary empire that encompassed dozens of ethnic peoples. Unlike the ladies in the Ariosta band who wore folksy white dresses with dark bodices and no hats, the women of the Bohème ensemble wear matching dresses with contrasting aprons and huge sombrero hats fitted with large pompons. Not surprisingly the men are not on display and are dressed in ordinary business suits. One of them must be the leader Lohmann but I'm not sure which one he is. Maybe the tallest man, second from right.

Notice that the women hold various brass instruments but there are four natural trumpets propped up in front. Typically these trumpets came as a quartet though they were all in the same key, usually E-flat. This postcard was sent on 7 March 1912 from Hamburg, Germany, about 550 miles from Austria's capital, Wien.   

* * *

This group is an octet of seven young ladies and one man. They are the Damen-Blas-Orchester „Erato“, Kapellmeister~conductor H. Schröder. The women wear matching dresses in a dark color with folk-type vests. Herr Schröder sits in the center at a table that has two rotary valve trumpets on it. The Blas-Orchester name suggests they played woodwind instruments too, but there are none shown here. Instead their brass instruments are clumped together in front with two pairs of natural trumpets leaning on chairs on either side. Notice the banners attached to the trumpets which were often embroidered with heraldic symbols like the eagle seen here. 

This card was sent on 13 November 1911 from Oberehn, a city now known as Obernai, a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. But in 1911 it was in the German territory of Reichsland Elsaß–Lothringen acquired by the German Empire during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

* * *

This brass band proudly promoted its heritage by choosing the name, Damen-Trompeter-Corps „Germania“, directed by A. Hardemann. This nine member ensemble had five women and four men. Herr Hartmann is likely the fellow with the biggest mustache seated in the center. The women are in identical dresses that have a navy collar. Their flat caps are maybe like a sailor but their sashes are not very nautical unless they are emergency flotation devices, too.  Their instruments are scattered on the floor with one young lady lying down and holding a natural trumpet. Two more are just left of her. 

As is the case with most of these groups, there are no names for any musicians except the leader. The women's string orchestras often had postcards of individual female soloists on flute, violin, or cello and brass groups would do the same for a female trumpeter. In most cases this was because the soloist was the daughter of the leader. It's quite likely that some of Herr Hartmann's children or even his wife are in this group, but those are details that history has forgot.

This postcard has a postmark of 14 November 191o from Waltershausen, a town in the south-western part of the district of Gotha in the state of Thuringia, Germany, about halfway between Frankfurt and Leipzig.

* * *

This is a larger ensemble of 12 musicans, seven women and five men. They are the Damen-Trompeter-Corps „Humoresk“, directed by H. M. Brunk, who surely is the man with the valve trumpet seated right. The women's outfits are another variation on a nautical style with cadet jackets and skirts with contrasting stripes. Everyone holds a brass instrument but standing front and center are three natural trumpets. 

This card was sent from Dresden on 4 June 1908. 

* * *

My next group is the Damen-Trompeter-Corps „Rhenania“, directed by F. P. Hartwig who sits center, I think. Like the leader of the Germania band, Herr Hartwig holds rolled-up paper, a symbol of a pianist or sometimes conductor. He leads seven young ladies and two other men. The women are dressed alike with a kind of decorative apron and no hats. Except for the leader and the woman playing drums, everyone else has a brass instrument. On the bass drum is a banner embroidered with the group's name and on the right are four natural trumpets, without banners but each wound with fancy tasseled rope.  

This card was sent on 9 August 1911 from Sudenburg, a district located in southwest Magdeburg, a city about 90 miles west of Berlin.

* * *

This group is another octet of five women and three men. They called themselves Fr. Weiher's Elite Damen-Blasorchester. The honorific Fr. stands for Frau~Mrs. The man standing center with a trumpet looks like he could be Herr Weiher, but is the tuba player seated next to him Frau Weiher? I can't say. Maybe she's the flugelhorn player to his right. The women are wearing white dresses with broad contrasting trim. Their little caps are fastened to their hair with dangerously long hatpins.  

This group adds pairs of mandolins and kettledrums to the ensemble as well as a folk xylophone called a Strohfiedel on the left under the smaller tuba. In the center is another quartet of natural trumpets complete with fringed banners.    

This postcard was mailed on 10 February 1913 from Strassburg, a major city in Alsace that, like Oberehn in the Erato band's postcard, was part of the German Empire in 1913. It is now known by its proper French name as Strasbourg.

* * *

My final band is the Damen-Trompeter-Corps „Zufriedenheit“, directed by Karl Hofert. It's another ten-piece ensemble with six women and four men. The word "Zufriedenheit" translates as "satisfaction", as in "I can't get no Zufriedenheit".  Despite the Trompeter Corps label there is actually one man with a clarinet standing third from left. I can't be certain he is the leader Herr Hofert, but he does have the best mustache. The women are wearing folksy German outfits but without caps or hats. The instruments shown are heavy on the low brass. but again front and center there are four natural trumpets arranged into a pyramid.  

This postcard was posted from Essen, Germany on 2 October 1909.

If anyone has read to this point they should recognize that I've gone A to Z in ladies with brass but have left out a few letters in the alphabet. Eighteen to be precise. I think I could have met that goal but that would be cruel to my readers. 

In the examples I've featured today, these musical groups were each ostensibly called a women's ensemble, but, as we can see, were actually a mixture of women and men, all professional musicians. That kind of integration of the sexes in the working world was not common in Germany, or really anywhere in the world in this era, as women had not yet attained equal rights under the laws for property, employment, or suffrage. But it was the way these German ladies were presented as talented entertainers that first caught my attention years ago when I began collecting these postcards. As I found more and more of them there was enough to see that a Damen Trompeter Corps was once a musical fad.  

I don't know exactly what music they played, but I believe their repertoire was mainly lighter music, popular songs and dances taken from many folk traditions within the larger Germanic culture. I use the word Germanic because it includes the many complicated regions of central Europe beyond Germany and Austria's borders where German was the principal language. 

But wait, there's more! In my collection there are an equally large number of postcards from non-German music groups, too. Hungarians, Czechs, Croatians, and more. And like the ones I've presented today these groups are often mostly women with a few men.  That's an A to Z challenge for another time.     

 

For anyone who can't get enough
of this unique type of brass ensemble

Here are my previous stories on Germanic ladies:
Ladies with Brass
Ladies of Brass with Hats
More Ladies of Brass
Even More Ladies with Brass
Still More Ladies with Brass

It's difficult to know how these groups sounded,

mainly because their concert repertoire was rarely recorded.

But we can get a little idea from a modern brass ensemble.

Here is the University of Kentucky Baroque Trumpet Ensemble
performing a piece of 17th century Italian music
entitled Sonata Tedesche da Tromba.

If it sounds familiar it's because the fanfare was arranged 
for the title track in many of Sylvester Stallone's  "Rocky" movies.

  

   Postcard Trivia   

Fourteen languages were used to label my first postcard of the Ariosta band as an official postcard approved by the Unione postale universelle. 

            1.    “Brefkort” = Norwegian 
            2.    “Carta postale” = Latin
            3.    “Post card” = English
            4.    “Carte postale” = French
            5.    “Postkarte” = German
            6.    “Cartolina postale” = Italian
            7.    “Dopisnice” = Czech/Slovak
            8.    “Открытое письмо” = Russian
            9.    “Levelező-lap” = Hungarian
            10.    “Briefkaart” = Dutch 
            11.    “Tarjetas Postale” = Spanish 
            12.    “Bilhete Postal” = Portuguese 
            13.    “Brevkort” = Danish
            14.    “Korespondenčni listek” = Slovene 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where every day is Mother's day.