Four sackbuts: tenor, soprano, alto, bass

The Sackbut (var. Sacbutt; Sackbutt; Sagbutt;), a brass instrument from the Renaissance and Baroque Eras, is the ancestor of the modern trombone. The name is derived from the Middle French sacquer and bouter ("push" and "pull") and the term survives in numerous English spelling variations including sacbut, sagbut, shagbolt and shakbusshe. In France, the instrument was called sacqueboute; in Germany, Posaune, and in Italy, trombone. The term sackbut is usually used to differentiate the historic instrument from its modern counterpart. Increasing interest in authentic performance in recent years has brought many trombonists to the sackbut. Image File history File links Sackbutt. ... Image File history File links Sackbutt. ... Image of a trumpet, foreground, a piccolo trumpet behind, and a flugelhorn in background. ... This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. ... For other uses, see Baroque (disambiguation). ... The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. ... Middle French (French: ) is a historical division of the French language which covers the period from (roughly) 1340 to 1611 [1]. It is a period of transition during which: the French language becomes clearly distinguished from the other competing Oïl languages which are sometimes subsumed within the concept of... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The authentic performance movement is an effort on the part of musicians and scholars to perform works of classical music in ways similar to how they were performed when they were originally written. ...

History

The earliest written reference to the instrument is in the Book of Daniel, around 600 BC. The sackbut resembles the medieval slide trumpet. The next earliest written reference to the instrument dates from 1468, at the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York at Bruges, during which a "trompette saicqueboute" was employed ^{[citation needed]}. The instrument evolved into what we know today as the 'Trombone', but is often described as having a more mellow tone. It is from the rennaicence period.It was employed mainly in alto, tenor and bass sizes. It was one of the most important instruments in Baroque polychoral works, along with the cornetto and organ. Compared to a modern tenor trombone, the tenor sackbut has a considerably smaller bore, and a smaller, more conical bell. Trumpeter redirects here. ... Charles the Bold Charles, called the Bold (French: Charles le Téméraire) (November 10, 1433 – 1477) was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477. ... Margaret of York (May 3, 1446 - November 23, 1503) - also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy- was a daughter to Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville, a sister of Kings Edward IV of England and Richard III of England, third wife to Charles the Bold, Duke... Geography Country Belgium Community Flemish Community Region Flemish Region Province West Flanders Arrondissement Bruges Coordinates , , Area 138. ... The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. ... In music, timbre, or sometimes timber, (from Fr. ... This article is about the voice-type. ... This article is about Tenor vocalists in music. ... Bass (IPA: [], rhyming with face), when used as an adjective, describes tones of low frequency or range. ... The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation. ... Three different cornetts: mute cornett, curved cornett and tenor cornett The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early wind instrument, dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ... Bore may refer to: A wave in a river caused by an incoming tide - see tidal bore The diameter of a pipe or tube, or the caliber of a gun The diameter of a cylinder and piston in a piston engine (See also: Stroke) A person who is boring The... A bell is a simple sound-making device. ...

Construction

Sackbuts come in several ranges. According to Michael Praetorius, there was an alto, a tenor, quart- and quint-basses, as well as a contrabass. Originally they were alto in D or E, tenor in A, bass in E or D, and contrabass in A. The common standards now are the alto in E♭, tenor in B♭, and bass in F (quart) or E♭ (quint). The basses, due to their longer slides, have a hinged handle on the slide stay, which is used to reach the long positions. Michael Praetorius. ...

The bore size of renaissance/baroque trombones is approximately 10mm and the bell rarely more than 10.5cm in diameter.

Early mouthpieces had flat rims, and compared to modern trombone mouthpieces they had shallow cups and narrow apertures.

Modern reproductions of sackbuts sacrifice some authenticity to harness manufacturing techniques and inventions that make them more comfortable for modern players, whilst retaining as much of the original character of the old instruments.

Some original instruments could be disassembled into the constituent straight tubes, bowed tubes, bell flare, and stays, with ferrules at the joints. Mersenne has a diagram. (Little imagination is needed to see how it could be reassembled into something approaching a natural trumpet.) Modern sackbut reproductions are usually soldered together. Natural Trumpet refers to the valveless brass instrument that is able to play the tones of the harmonic series. ...

The stays on period sackbuts are flat. While the bell stay remained flat, from about 1660 the slide stays became tubular. On many modern reproductions round stays are much more comfortable to play and easier to make.

The original way to make the slide tubes was to roll a flat piece of metal around a solid cylinder mandrel, and the joining ends soldered together. Modern manufacturers now draw the tubes. They also tend to have stockings, which was only invented in around 1850. In addition modern made slides are usually nickel plated for a harder, smoother finish.

Tuning slides came in during the very late 18th century. Early trombonists adjusted pitch with the slide, and by adding variously shaped and sized crooks. Modern reproductions often have a bell bow tuning slide or telescopic slide between the slide and bell sections. Crooks are still used, as are variously sized bell bow sections. Crook can refer to the following: Crooking is a verb to refer to the action of creating a bend or curve; for example, crooking a finger. ...

The water key was added in the 19th century, but modern reproductions often have them. The water key is a valve or tap used to allow the drainage of accumulated fluid from musical instruments such as trombones or sackbuts. ...

Pitch

Renaissance wind band pitch (music) was typically approximately A=466 Hz, one half step higher than modern pitch. The tenors that survive are more or less pitched at B♭ at A=440 or slightly higher, which is equivalent to A at A=466 - or slightly higher. Praetorius describes an alto in D, tenor in A, and bass in D; some groups are beginning to use D and A positions in performance for the sake of greater historical accuracy, rather than transposing their parts up a half step - which helps avoid problems with tuning temperaments. A wind band, also called concert band, symphonic band, or wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments, and string bass. ... Pitch is the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. ...

Sound

The sackbut's sound is characterized by a more delicate, vocal timbre than the modern instrument. Its dynamic flexibility lends itself to a vocal style of playing and facilitates effective shaping of phrases.

Mersenne wrote in 1636, "It should be blown by a skillful musician so that it may not imitate the sounds of the trumpet, but rather assimilate itself to the sweetness of the human voice, lest it should emit a warlike rather than a peaceful sound."

Repertoire

The sackbut replaced the slide trumpet in the 15th century alta capella wind bands that were common in towns throughout Europe. See Waits. Alta capella were town wind bands found throughout continental Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, which typically consisted of shawms and slide trumpets or sackbuts. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... WAITS was a heavily modified variant of the Digital Equipment Corporations TOPS-10 operating system for the PDP-10 mainframe computer, used at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) up until 1990; the mainframe computer it ran on also went by the name of SAIL. There was never an...

It also was used in church music both for instrumental service music (brought to a fine art by the Gabrieli family in late 16th century Venice) and as a doubling instrument for choral music. The treble and high alto parts were most often played by cornetts or shawms, with the violin sometimes replacing the cornett in 17th century Italian music. Christian music is music created by or adapted for the Christian church. ... Gabrieli is the name of two distinguished composers of the Italian Venetian School of the late Renaissance: Andrea Gabrieli (c. ... For other uses, see Venice (disambiguation). ... This article is about choirs, musical ensembles containing singers. ... Three different cornetts: mute cornett, curved cornett and tenor cornett The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early wind instrument, dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. ... The shawm was a Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family, made in Europe from the late 13th century until the 17th century. ... For the Anne Rice novel, see Violin (novel). ... Since Roman times, Italy has been one of the cultural centers for all of Europe. ...

Monteverdi ushers sackbuts into the first great opera - 'L'Orfeo' 1607. For the composer see Claudio Monteverdi For the Swiss automobile brand created by Peter Monteverdi, see Monteverdi (car) Monteverde Monte Verde Category: ... LOrfeo (LOrfeo, favola in musica, SV 318, or La Favola dOrfeo, or The Legend of Orpheus) is one of the earliest works recognised as an opera, composed by Claudio Monteverdi with text by Alessandro Striggio for the annual carnival of Mantua. ...

Sackbuts also frequently played courtly dance music. Victorian ballroom dances at the Gaskell Ball Historical dance (or early dance) in a collective term covering a wide variety of dance types from the past as they are danced in the present. ...

In the 17th century, a considerable repertoire of chamber music using sackbut with various combinations of violins, cornetts and dulcians, often with continuo, appeared. Composers included Dario Castello, Giovanni Battista Fontana, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Giovanni Paolo Cima and Andrea Cima. Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. ... The dulcian is a Renaissance bass woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. ... Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervallic content (the intervals which make up a sonority), later chords, in relation to a bass note. ... Dario Castello (?–c. ... Johann Heinrich von Schmelzer (1623 – 1688) was an Austrian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. ... Giovanni Paolo Cima (1570 – 1622) was an Italian composer and organist of the early Baroque era. ...

Giovanni Paolo Cima, organist of S. Celso wrote the oldest known trio sonata and solo violin sonata. Contained in his Concerti ecclesiastici (Milan 1610) is his brother Andrea's Capriccio 'for cornett and trombone or violin and violone'. Giovanni Paolo Cima (1570 – 1622) was an Italian composer and organist of the early Baroque era. ...

Giovanni Martino Cesare wrote "La Hieronyma," (Musikverlag Max Hieber, MH6012) the earliest known piece for accompanied solo trombone. It comes from Cesare's collection "Musicali Melodie per voci et instrumenti a una, due, tre, quattro, cinque, e sei" published in Munich 1621 of 28 pieces for a mixture of violins, cornetts, trombone, vocal soloists and organ continuo.

Francesco Rognoni was another composer who specified the trombone in a set of divisions (variations) on the well-known song Suzanne ung jour (London Pro Musica, REP15). Rognoni was a master violin and gamba player whose treatise Selva di Varie passaggi secondo l'uso moderno (Milan 1620 and facsimile reprint by Arnaldo Forni Editore 2001) details improvisation of diminutions and Suzanne is given as one example. Although most diminutions are written for organ, string instruments or cornett, Suzanne is "per violone over Trombone alla bastarda". With virtuosic semiquaver passages across the range of the instrument, it reflects Praetorius' comments about the large range of the tenor and bass trombones, and good players of the Quartposaune (bass trombone in F) could play fast runs and leaps like a viola bastarda or cornetto. The term "bastarda" describes a technique that made variations on all the different voices of a part song, rather than just the melody or the bass. Francesco Rognoni [of] Taeggio (born in Milan second half of the 16th century–died after 1626) was an Italian Renaissance composer. ...

Aside from the Italian areas, in the 17th century, sackbuts were also in use in England, Spain and Germany.

The first English piece scored for trombone is John Adson's 'Courtly Masquing Ayres' (1611). The other work of note from this period is Matthew Locke's 'Music for His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts', a suite for Charles II's coronation 1661. John Adson (c. ... Matthew Locke (1730 - 7 September 1801) was a U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1793 and 1799. ...

An excellent piece that came out of Germany in the 17th century was Heinrich Schütz' 'Fili me, Absalon' (1629) scored for bass, four trombones and basso continuo. Heinrich Schütz. ...

Modern performance

Many groups specializing in period music make frequent use of the sackbut, including:

• Concerto Palatino
• Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse
• Caecilia Concert
• La Fenice
• Piffaro
• the Gabrieli Consort
• His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts
• The York Waits
• The Whole Noyse
• Capella de la Torre

Recordings

Plenty of recordings of the authentic sackbut are now available from the groups such as Concerto Palatino, HMSC, Gabrieli Consort and the Toulouse Sacqueboutiers. For a closer examination of the instrument, here are some recommended recordings where the sackbut is heavily featured in a 'solo' capacity.

• Treasury of a Saint - Caecilia Concert, Challenge Records 2006
• La Sacqueboute - Michel Becquet, Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse

Early surviving instruments

The earliest instruments:

Other notable ones:

For more information, see Herbert (2006).

Modern manufacturers

• Egger, Basel, Switzerland
• Ewald Meinl, Geretsried, Germany
• Geert Jan van der Heide, Netherlands
• Helmut Voigt, Germany
• Jürgen Voigt Brass, Germany
• Thein, Bremen, Germany
• John Webb, London
• Frank Tomes, London +44 (0)208 542 4942
• Böhm und Meinl
• BAC/Mike Corrigan, USA
• Johannes Finke, Germany

References

• Herbert, Trevor (2006). The Trombone London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10095-7

External links

• The Waits Website
• Musica Antiqua's Sacbut page History, photos, and sounds