Hark! The Herald Trombones Sing!

'Tis the season for wonder and delight, and what better way to celebrate the Yuletide than to have four trombones wish us -

        A Merry Xmas and         
    a Happy New Year -    
        Dalmaer (?)       

These are no ordinary bandsmen of low brass, but a full complete trombone quartet with soprano, alto, tenor and bass slide trombones. The small trombone is a soprano in B-flat that is essentially the length of a B-flat trumpet, albeit adjustable. The bass trombone on the right is not as large as a modern bass and lacks the thumb valve that is now a standard plumbing extension. Both the soprano and alto trombones are rarely played today, and only a dedicated trombonist would bother to acquire one, mostly for the novelty of playing in the high register.

At first glance this might seem a trick photograph as these four lanky young men are so alike. They have such a similarity, especially the center two who must be twins, that I believe they are all brothers. The signature style of Dalmaer is too fanciful to know if it's a first name or last. and of course we can't know if the writer is even one of the musicians. Alas, like so many hatted bandsmen photos, their cap badges are not quite in focus to read. Perhaps Crawford or Granford ?

But I do know that this musical quartet hails from Texas where everything is just big.

The postcard was sent from Sherman, Texas on December 26 to Mrs. Kate Woods of Adrian, Missouri.  The two postmarks are missing the year, but someone penciled in 1915 at the top. However, the Benjamin Franklin one-cent stamp dates from the previous decade, as it was first issued in 1902 and comes from a postal series appropriately nicknamed the Gingerbread Definitives for the ornate border. By 1908 the one-cent stamp has a different design. So I would date this quartet to 1904-08.

Sackbuts in Syntagma Musicum (1614-20)
by Michael Praetorius.

The trombone has an ancient heritage that goes back to the early Renaissance. The first brass instruments to use a variable length slide were called sackbuts and were played in a consort of different sizes that mimicked soprano. alto, tenor and bass voices. The sackbut quartet made a formidable noise when playing ceremonial music in the town square but it was in sacred music where they became most useful as a supporting accompaniment to church choirs.















Youtube provides dozens of splendid videos for trombone quartets, but not so many for sackbuts. Here the Slokar Trombone Quartet plays some typical music for the Renaissance sackbut using a consort of instruments much like those shown above in the 1614 illustration by Praetorius.

The modern trombone choir uses principally the tenor and the bass, and only very occasionally the alto. To best hear the vocal quality of the trombone, I chose a performance by the Wiener Posaunenquartett (Vienna Trombone Quartet) playing the beautiful motet Locus Iste by Anton Bruckner (1824-1896).

I suspect that the trombone quartet of Sherman, Texas didn't play much Bruckner, but I would bet they played a lot of church hymns and vocal quartets. And I'm sure that Mrs. Woods smiled when she got her cheery holiday postcard.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the joyful sound of accordions
accompany Father Christmas on his rounds.