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Bachology

TO THE BACK OF THE CONCERT HALL ADDENDUM
(Roy Hempley)

TO THE BACK OF THE CONCERT HALL "ADDENDUM"

Readers of this article probably are going to have some trouble understanding the connection between the background and the sections describing trumpets. There is simply not enough information presented in either section to arrive at clear cause and effect relationships. I cannot tell exactly why Bach’s C trumpets evolved differently than his Bb trumpets. I do know that they did. I also know that there is uncertainty reflected in the data and that this was uncharacteristic of data related to Bach’s other developments. His push to build good Bb trumpets seems almost systematic by comparison. Bach changed directions on his C trumpets so many times that it seems like his methods were not working.

My problems understanding the data stopped preparation of this article in its tracks while I tried to make some sense of the situation. I knew that Bach focused on making orchestral-quality C trumpets. I found that clearly stated in his earliest catalog. Strangely, there is no mention of orchestral applications for his piston valve Bb Stradivarius trumpets. He does talk about using his rotary valve Bb trumpet for orchestral use. What he had to say about those appears in Reference 1, but his catalog entry for rotary valve trumpets almost seems to be an afterthought. The page describing them is located near the end of his catalog right after pages on his Apollo and Mercury trumpets. His rotary valve trumpets are not even given a model name, e.g., Stradivarius. Taken as a whole, there is no doubt that his catalog focuses on his C trumpets for orchestral applications.

Given his three choices of instruments Bach might have promoted for orchestral use (piston and rotary valve Bb trumpets and C trumpets), it seems almost self defeating to choose C trumpets in the 1920s unless there was some motivation to head in that direction. Bach not only chose the most difficult path by promoting C trumpets, it was also the riskiest because he had no assurances that the orchestral community would follow along. To make matters even worse, as far as I have been able to determine, Bach had no real experience with C trumpets.

After thinking about this for some time, I concluded that I had to explore a little what Bach may have seen in American orchestras to lead him down this path. Writing about orchestras and orchestral trumpets was way outside of my realm. In a nutshell, I had to have help. Quite a few people did their best to provide me with some much needed education. Like anything else, getting 90 percent of an answer takes some time, but getting the other 10 percent takes a lot longer. I do not want to be an expert on the orchestral movement in the Unites States. I simply wanted to explore some ideas about where Bach may have thought he was headed and, more importantly, why. In the end, I gathered about as much as I was going to get without delving into the harder 10 percent, and I decided to write down what I had learned even if certain aspects were not entirely clear.

This article goes hand in hand with my experience trying to resurrect a Chicago C-type trumpet discussed in Reference 7. That article is a good place to start. Not only does it explain my background, mechanical engineer and amateur trumpet player, but it describes how I got into the subject of Bach C trumpets in the first place. It also points out the difficulty of determining exactly what might go into making a successful trumpet. What all of this meant is that I had to understand a little of the “market” Bach was trying to open and what may have been influencing him. That led me to talk to some very knowledgeable, talented and gracious people. I decided in this addendum to relate some of my experiences along the way. I will not talk about people in order of importance. They were all important to me.

My efforts to understand the situation ran in parallel to analyzing the data for a time. Then I was able to get feedback between the two efforts. I would learn something about early orchestral applications, and I would try to see what the data told me. If I found something in the data I didn’t understand, I would try to correlate that with my “external” investigation. Eventually, I think enough of the two paths jelled, but sequentially, something like the following happened.

After writing my earlier article about the Chicago C trumpets, I realized that I had a lot of unused data on hands. Yet I needed access to more trumpets. If I’ve learned one thing since I began writing about Bach instruments, it’s that his data alone don’t tell enough of the story.

I eventually ran an “advertisement” for C trumpets in the “Bachology Notes” section of Conn-Selmer’s Web site, and I got some responses. One response came from a Bach owner named Chris Culpeppers who trusted me with his Bach C trumpet which is in nearly original condition. My co-author, Doug Lehrer, also loaned me some C trumpets. All of these instruments turned out to be valuable resources.

The champion responder, however, is an outstanding young trumpet player with a real interest in the tools of his trade. His name is Tilden Olsen. Tilden is a trumpet student at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and studies with George Vosburgh, the principal trumpet player in the Pittsburgh Symphony. All I knew when Tilden contacted me, however, was that he owned several vintage Bach C trumpets.

Of course I wanted to convince Tilden to loan me his trumpets. Not only did he agree, but he said that he and his father would bring them to my house. Tilden was 17 years old then. When I learned Tilden was coming and bringing trumpets, I called a friend of mine, Steve Hendrickson, the principal trumpet player in the National Symphony. Steve and I had opportunities to talk about C trumpets on previous occasions as I was writing about my Chicago C-style trumpet. This was a special event, however, because I was going to have eight vintage Bach C trumpets at my house at the same time. Steve readily agreed to come over. He even brought his new Yamaha, and I got a look at that too.

Early on November 18th, 2006, Tilden and his father arrived. A little while later, Steve showed up.

I chose to show this particular picture for several reasons. The table on the right is where I do my work. Some tools are on top. Boxes some of the trumpets were shipped in are underneath. Copies of two of Bach’s technical drawings are on the wall. Trial photographs of instruments for articles are on the wall too. (My photography room is down the hall behind Steve.)

The trumpets I researched for this article are on the table in front of Steve and Tilden. I now have detailed technical notes on all of them. Copies of their respective shop cards are on the table so we could tell the configurations of the instruments were. This was an interesting session in that I got to hear eight vintage Bach C trumpets played one after another. I asked Steve to make notes of his impression about each trumpet on index cards.

Tilden was more helpful than just bringing trumpets. He told me about another bunch of vintage Bach trumpets in Pittsburgh. He suggested I meet with the owners.

It was about this time that I realized that I had assembled enough data to confuse myself. As I mentioned earlier, I needed some help trying to unscramble what seemed to be Bach’s uncharacteristic behavior, which can be described best by the word “chaotic”. I thought I might get some more background in Pittsburgh, so I arranged to meet with the owners of the trumpets Tilden told me about. That was on December 16, 2006.

I met with George Vosburgh and others in Heinz Hall. Jon, Tilden and Jerry are students. Chad is the substitute trumpet player for the symphony. I spent the afternoon with these guys. They played on all of the trumpets, and I learned a great deal listening to them.

Here’s something I learned. Orchestral trumpet players have more than a big group of musicians to deal with. They have to contend with those big concert halls too. Filled with people, that’s a daunting environment. It’s no wonder they have to search for just the right trumpet. In the first place, they have to blow through that mess without killing themselves. Then, they have to sound good while doing it. Coming to those notions is what gave me the idea for the title to this article “To the Back Of the Concert Hall” where even people sitting in the cheap seats still pay pretty hefty prices to hear trumpets played with brilliance and clarity. Some of these concert halls are not that great in helping out trumpet players either.

Listening to George and the others gave me the decided notion that some of the older Bachs might not cut it. Of course the question for me became, “Why not?”

I got quite a few new insights later talking to George and some of his students. George has a lot of experience with vintage Bach trumpets. He played on one of the Chicago Cs for years before coming to Pittsburgh. The trumpet he’s currently using is a New York Bach. He used it as backup in Chicago, but it sounds pretty good as his main trumpet. Maybe George has something to do with that.

Later in the day, I had an opportunity to meet the other Pittsburgh trumpet players, Neal Bertsen and Charles Lirette. Neal ran off with Mager’s trumpet just before he was due on stage for a late afternoon concert. I wondered if I was going to get it back before the performance started. I did, and it was a good thing too. I had to head back to Virginia. I asked Neal to loan me the mouthpipe from his New York Bach to take to Elkhart and measure. Later he did. Now there’s trust for you.

It wasn’t long after my trip to Pittsburgh that I reviewed Doug Yeo’s article on the trumpet players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). I had seen it before when I was looking up Bach’s playing background for my article entitled “Play It Again, Mr. Bach”, and I knew that he played in the BSO for a year. This time Doug’s article tweaked my interest even more because it contains several pre-World War Two pictures of BSO trumpet players holding Bach C trumpets. One of them was Georges Mager. Eventually I talked to Doug about the pictures in his article. He tried to arrange access to them from the current owner, but that fell through. While I couldn’t get permission to use the pictures, they are almost identical to the one I bought on Ebay and scanned for this article. Doug did suggest that I talk to Tom Rolfs, Jr., the principal trumpet player in the BSO in hopes that the BSO records might make some mention of those trumpets.

Tom too takes an interest in vintage trumpets, particularly those related to the BSO. He was unsuccessful in finding information on the trumpets in the BSO archives. He even ventured to look for them in the BSO storerooms. He couldn’t locate anything. Tom suggested that I might want to talk to Roger Voisin because Roger appears in the pictures.

I had several conversations with Roger beginning in early 2007. Roger could not have been kinder or more patient. He even provided two pronunciations of “Voisin”, one of them French and one with an English flavor. He simultaneously seemed to take great delight in the fact that an “outsider”, as he identified me, was taking an interest in BSO history as well as wanting to impart stories about the old days. Roger had a decided take on the early days playing in the BSO, and he seemed very much to want me to appreciate some of his experiences.

Roger brought up the pictures in Doug’s article, but he didn’t refer to the article itself. He just seemed to recall such pictures being taken. The pictures were amusing to him because he never played on a Bach. On the other hand, we never arrived at an explanation for the pictures either. I can almost understand something of the situation. Roger was only seventeen when he joined the BSO, and the first of the two pictures was taken that year. The next one was taken just four years later. I’m sure that his father Rene was there to ensure that Roger was in the pictures. If Rene had anything to do with those trumpets, however, I was never able to entice that out of Roger. Still, my interest in the pictures increased as I began to learn from Bach’s data that Mager was not only the principal trumpet player in the BSO, but he also sold Bach trumpets. The story about the association between the two men began to unfold just a little.

The question of why these guys in the BSO played on C trumpets stuck in the back of my mind, and I eventually recalled reading the article by Gil Mitchell about how orchestral trumpet players really didn’t play on C trumpets until after World War Two. This provided something of a problem for me as I began to research all the trumpet players who I thought bought Bach C trumpets before the war.

If you talked to Roger enough about Mager, the name of Bud Herseth was bound to come up. Roger had a few stories to tell about him too. Roger said that I might want to talk to Bud. George Vosburgh had already suggested that, and so I did. Some people might like to know that the New England Conservatory of Music has a historian. He provided me with a copy of all of Mager’s trumpet students. I found Bud’s name right away. I was looking for other names I might associate with names on Bach’s shop cards, but I didn’t find any.

Bud remembers well when the Chicago Symphony got the Chicago Cs. From my perspective, however, it was more important for me to know that Mager played on a Bach C trumpet. This meant that he eventually came around to playing a Bach, but it was long after he began selling Bach instruments.

It was also important to know that the Chicago players followed Bud’s lead in switching to C trumpets. That provided something of an explanation about why I couldn’t find any evidence that any of the Chicago players had tried a Bach C trumpet before Bud got there.

As time went on, I began putting together the story of this article. Because there is no direct cause-and-effect relationship between what was happening in the orchestral environment and Bach’s early trumpet developments, I thought it would be a good idea to see if I could get the story in front of a few people for comments. This is a pretty good way to see if the story holds together ok. I put together a Power Point talk that lasts about an hour and a half. While the content is somewhat different than the article, it sort of follows along the same lines. I first gave the talk to Steve Hendrickson and a few other friends on August 21, 2007.

Except for Steve, none of the people in the photo are professional trumpet players. This is a special group, however. I’ve played in quintets with George for years. Andy is sort of an ensemble organizer. When time permits, he hosts an unusual group of trumpet players, including Don and Bill, which meets at his house. What makes the group unusual is that it often consists of both professional and amateur trumpet players who just enjoy playing for self improvement as well as trying to make trumpet ensembles sound good. The latter is no small task. If you’re in the Washington area, it’s worth checking out whether Andy’s group is playing or not.

Having played on and off with these guys, I knew I could rely on them to give me the real skinny on my talk. To add a little spice to the trumpet players’ comments, I asked my friend Noel to join us. Noel is not a trumpet player at all. He plays tuba, but I don’t hold that against him. Despite his predilection, I knew I could count on his opinion too because, well, tuba players are sort of outspoken.

In my presentation, I sometimes use recordings of me playing a short tune from Arban on all eight of the C trumpets I researched, which I transposed. Now, I don’t transpose that well, so working with that gave me time to get comfortable on each trumpet. In the process, I formed decided opinions about them. It’s my view that you can certainly detect the large-to-small bore size changes in the pre-World War Two trumpets. The trumpets simply begin to feel more and more open. This was due to more than the bore size increase, however. The components were also being changed too.

When I switched to the post-war trumpets, however, the difference between them and the pre-war trumpets was pronounced. There was a big change in sound, and I could control the post-war trumpets much better. Even I could make the sound spread when I wanted to. I could also play with more energy, but I don’t think that there was a lot of difference between the large and medium-large bore post-war trumpets. Then again, I didn’t have to send sound to that back of the concert hall either.

Of course I don’t have to use any of these trumpets over a long period of time, so my impressions have to be thought of as initial impressions. It’s entirely possible that I played on them a little like I anticipated. I do this kind of mental adjustment all the time. When I pick up a smaller bore trumpet, I tend to back off on it at first whether I need to or not. In any case, as I’ll point out in a few paragraphs, I’m not really accustomed to having to make a trumpet behave. With me, it’s more a matter of what the trumpet will provide for me. At least that’s true until I get used to it.

No one should think that the pre-war horns didn’t play well. They just aren’t as manageable as the others as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think they can project as well for different reasons in each case, and that’s one of the things I wanted to know about. Of course now I would be concerned about looking at Steve’s opinions. Suppose he disagrees with me? Maybe I’ll get up enough courage to look at his opinions one of these days. By that time, however, this will be in print.

Part of my presentation contains recordings of Georges Mager playing part of the Promenade from Pictures on his Bach trumpet followed by Bud Herseth playing the same thing on his. Talk about an interesting contrast. I guess Georges didn’t teach it to Bud right. Either that or Bud wanted to show his teacher some new tricks. In any case, the differences led me to think that others might want to add their interpretations to the fray. I set up music to the Promenade so that after my talk, everybody in attendance could play it on the vintage Bachs I still had in my possession. The highlight of this for me was getting to play a duet version with Steve. Steve played second. He played in tune.

A few days later, Gil Mitchell was in town, so I arranged to give the talk to him on August 26, 2007.

We talked a lot about Vincent Bach that day. Gil was a close friend of Bach’s. In fact, Bach gave Gil his music library, and he made a couple of special instruments for Gil. Gil was responsible for the U.S. Army Band getting the so-called Kennedy bugle I wrote about in the articles on Bach’s bugles. It’s always interesting to hear stories about the two of them when they were together. This is one way I sort of probe into Bach’s personality, i.e., talking to people who knew him.

Bill is a local trumpet player and teacher. A graduate of the University of Indiana music school, he used to study trumpet with Gil too. Bill works on Bach history himself, and he visits with me quite often.

The poster on the wall behind us? Well, that’s a picture of the Dreher High School Band in Columbia South Carolina—my band. Frank Simon brought Sousa original manuscripts to Columbia and conducted our band in a memorial concert. Ever play “The Red Man”? The poster is the concert’s advertisement poster from 1955. Playing solo cornet in a Sousa concert conducted by Frank Simon as a freshman—big stuff.

Then who should come to town shortly afterwards but Jeffrey Work, the principal trumpet player in the Oregon Symphony. Jeffrey and I had gotten together on a few occasions before he moved to Oregon to talk trumpet. He stopped by my house on September 8, 2007. It was nice to talk with him again. It was also another opportunity to run my material by somebody knowledgeable.

Jeffrey is playing on Mager’s trumpet in the above photograph. (That is not a Bach mouthpiece.) Here’s the thing. After listening to my talk, he played the same little Arban tune I used to try the trumpets out—from memory. The problem for me was that the tune didn’t sound the same when Jeffrey played it. It made me think that maybe I didn’t have a handle on how those pre-war trumpets sounded at all. But, the fact is, I don’t have anywhere near the control on the sound of a trumpet that Jeffrey does. He can probably make a shoebox sound good. I’m not sure, but I think the trumpet has a bigger influence on my playing that it does on Jeffrey’s. Actually, Jeffrey played the tune very delicately, and delicate is not in my arsenal.

I should say something about the document on the wall to Jeffrey’s left. It’s a copy of an historic blueprint of a Bach trumpet. The original was made in 1921, some four years before Bach began production. Nobody knows much about this period of time in Bach’s career. This is one interesting blueprint.

I can’t recall exactly now, but I think it was about this time I called Roger again to say I’d like to visit with him and bring my talk to Boston so he could comment on it. Roger was admitted to the hospital within a day or so of when I called. He passed away just a few months later.

Then I put together big plans. I planned a trip back to Pittsburgh, but this time I was to give my talk to some trumpet students at CMU. Neal Berntsen (Pittsburgh Symphony) teaches a class that he thought might benefit from my talk. I went to CMU on September 18, 2007.

Chad, Jon and Tilden might be recognized from the stage of Heinz Hall the previous November. Here’s an interesting observation about these trumpet students. They were very polite and attentive. If talk about bore sizes, brass alloys, etc. bored them, they didn’t say so. After my presentation, many of them went about their business of playing, which I guess is what they do. I can tell you this. There is some power in that group. There’s paint peeled off the walls in that room. I think Matthew is responsible for at least some of that.

Probably because of George and Neal’s influence, these folks really wanted to know about vintage Bach trumpets. One or two wanted to know where they could find one. I wish I knew, but I probably wouldn’t have told them anyway.

Well, by now I had given this talk several times, so I figured it was about time the people in Elkhart saw it. After all, I needed their permission to use some of the material, even if it was after the fact. I arrived at the Bach plant the next afternoon, September 19, 2007.

This picture was taken in a conference room at the new Bach plant. I’ve been going to the Bach plant for some years, sometimes more than once a year. Tedd Waggoner is my sponsor. Tedd is the person responsible for preserving Bach’s data, and my access to it is through him. Now, Tedd and I are friends, but it also means that he controls the material I can release. I try not to get aggravated when he thinks something should be kept close to home, but I don’t think I do a good job of keeping my agitation to myself.

Tedd runs the Bach plant now, and I almost didn’t recognize it. That’s what I mean when I say the new Bach plant. Tedd was put in the unenviable position of Bach plant manager during the now rather famous plant strike. He got the place cleaned up such that it looks entirely different now. And production is high again. To make my point about it being a new plant, you can actually find things in there now. I wonder what the plant floor in Mt Vernon looked like?

Tedd used to work in the corporate headquarters. His replacement there is Jeff Christiana. Jeff was a classmate at Indiana University with Bill Siegfried (see picture with Gil Mitchell). From these two—Bill and Jeff— I began to get the idea that Indiana trumpet players are everywhere.

Rich is an important guy. Among lots of other things, he owns Conn-Selmer’s Web site where this article is posted. Rich and his people are very helpful.

One thing interested me the day I visited there. The hallway behind these guys runs up and down the length of the Bach plant. If you play a trumpet in there after the workers have gone home, it sort of sounds like Heinz Hall. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration that Mr. Heinz would take exception to, but the acoustics are pretty good. Everybody got a chance to try Mager’s trumpet in the hallway as well as my resurrection Chicago C. Mager would have been pleased with the way his trumpet sounded when Jeff played it. On the other hand, my resurrection Chicago C didn’t fare all that well, but at least I know why. I wish I’d had one of those late New Yorks like George Vosburgh’s with me.

In all of this, I didn’t get any major complaints about what I was saying. I realized that I would have to spend a lot more time if I were to try and clarify the picture any further. I also know that some people might find my view of the situation limited, but I think the picture is clear enough. Bach simply worked too early on an impossible task, i.e., creating a C trumpet that would generate its own market ahead of the orchestral community’s readiness to use such instruments. His efforts were not wasted, however. In fact, as I noted in the main part of the article, they provided the best of all lessons, i.e.; they told him what not to do as he moved forward. When the time came (after World War Two), he was ready.

CONTACT THE AUTHOR

Roy Hempley
7783 Turlock Road
Springfield, VA 22153
rhempley@verizon.net