C Trumpet in the Orchestra.

[dbacon]

We have the French to thank for that. Georges Mager, Marcel LaFosse with Boston. Mager was a famous orchestral trumpet player (joining the Boston Symphony in 1918, LaFosse in 1926, Roger Voisin 1927) and had as one of his better students one Adolph Herseth. Bud studied with LaFosse and Mager at the New England Conservatory on the GI bill after WW II. Mager played in Boston for a good thirty years under Koussevitsky and Monteaux.
These great players brought the French C with them, brought that wonderful sound to the Boston Symphony. Heim (1906-1920), Bach (1914-1915), Kloepfel (1898-1927), Shuebruk (1880's) were Bflat players.

Vacchiano, then Herseth gave the C to the later part of the 20th Century. Mager and LaFosse and Voisin to the first half. Before Vacchiano and Herseth there were three big names in Orchestral Trumpet playing. Mager, Saul Caston and Harry Glantz. Caston a brilliant soloistic player, Glantz the solid first trumpet player.

The C trumpet seems to be well entrenched in todays Orchestra.



I thought I'd add this to the Orhestra Forum for any discussion. Thanks for your input.


Dave Bacon

[Bartok]

Great post Dave! Your info is very accurate! As a former Vacchiano student I know of the trumpeters you spoke of and got to hear SO MANY STORIES about them! Too bad many young players don't know of them!!!!! They where the Herseth's, Phil Smiths of the time!!!

[dbacon]

Certainly Mr. Vacchiano was a strong influence in what may be called the American School of Trumpet Playing. That being defined as very sensitive playing but with a magnificent sound! Mr. Vacchiano's main teachers were Schlossberg and Gustave Heim, but very influenced by Mager. After hearing him at Carnegie Hall, and seeing the large mouthpiece he played, it opened up a whole new world for him. This mouthpiece was given to Mager by his grandfather who was Arban's prize pupil, and Mager gave a copy to Vacchiano. It changed his whole career. Mr. Vacchiano has a large face and was playing on a very small mouthpiece. Moving to the larger mouthpiece opened eveything up for him, his range, speed of tonguing, doubled his sound, began playing as he never thought he could. This was in 1933 or 34 before joining the Orchestra, 1935 hired by Arturo Toscanini. He was First Trumpet with the New York Philharmonic where he played for 38 years! So many of those years with Nat Prager as Second Trumpet, the greatest Second Trumpet in history!!


Dave Bacon

[Bartok]

Mr. Vacchiano would ALWAYS refer to Nat Preger as the BEST there was!!!!

[ This Message was edited by: Bartok on 2003-06-16 09:48 ]

[romey1]

[ This Message was edited by: romey1 on 2004-05-16 17:10 ]

[Mzony]

I think it is hard to reflect upon that era in music and call somebody "THE MAN"! There were so many GREAT orchestras that had VERY different musical auras.
The New York Philharmonic and Vachhiano were great and soulful and exciting. They could make you teary one moment and at the edge of your seat the next.
Cleveland/Szell recordings with Adelstein offered something entirely different. A cleansliness and precision in ensemble that gave Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and even Tchaikovsky and Strauss, a real vitality that was really extraordinary.
Boston Symphony from Koussevitzky up and to and even through Leinsdorf were almost a French Orchestra. Roger Voisin had a way of playing that always created a kind of fevorish excitment. People now talk about his vibrato and his sound, but when he played whether you wanted to copy that in any form or not, he was passionate exciting and made the hair stand up on your arms. And then later was the extremely soulful Armando Ghitalla.
Philadelphia with Ormandy had a lushness and a warmth that was played with the most expressivo any orchestra has probably ever played with. They could disarm ANYBODY, and Gil Johnson played with the most lyrical approach that anybody could imagine.
And then there was Chicago with Bud. He became the standard. The CSO play with this energy and accuracy that was hard to contend with at the time. They were probably the first to just open up and let it fly and to have everybody in each section be truly incredible players who were very into playing as a section and being rock solid and unified. Not to mention that Bud has an unreal sound, lyrical approach one minute and a devistatingly powerful one the next. Truly worthy of being the standard.
However, after all of this, to call one person "THE MAN" from that era of such amazing contrasts...that is a tough bill to sell. Every orchestra was totally different at that time, as was each section, each principal player, and that is what makes that time in music history so wonderful to me.
I am sorry I took so long to get to the point...AND I am aware that I left out a few names and orchestras. You will have to forgive me as I am not so familiar with the others.

[Ralph]

Bartok,

Could you give us a little insight on Vacchiano as a teacher? I've admired him for years. I try to play on a Stork 1 thinking it was the same, or close to the same mouthpiece he used, but it's very big. What was his choice of mouthpiece or did it even matter?

[Bartok]

Sure Ralph! First off, I just want to say what a privelege it was to study with him! I studied with him in the early to mid 90's. At that time, he really didn't play in the lessons. There was one time that he took out the music to Vivaldi Cto for 2 trumpets and played it on a C trumpet with pretty ridiculous precision given his lack of playing and his age (mid 80's).

I did see his mouthpiece...yes, it was pretty huge with a really thin rim. But, this is not somthing that he pushed on his students. He really didn't care what you played on. He preferred Bachs, but wasn't manditory. Sounding good was manditory!

I've never witnessed a solfege pro like him! It was AWSOME! No matter what was on the stand, he could solfege it in any key or with numbers and do it faster than I could play it! So....yes....transposition was very important with him. He also would give assignments with music with different clefs (just another way to transpose....some french books) Normally, his transposition assignments were out of the Sachse book.

Most of the time, his lessons were not about the assignments from the previous week. He trusted that if he gave you an assignment, you would be diligent about your practice because you wanted to get better. If you chose not to practice it, it's your loss. He felt that he had so much info, that he didn't want to waste much of the time checking up on you and your assignment. Of course, if you had questions or were having difficulty, he would go over stuff with you.

In lessons, I remember reading down lots of excerpts. This was really important for me because I was coming from a jazz background and was really behind in orchestral playing... which is what I do now! We'd go through everything! Not just the big stuff. EVERYTHING! And he'd tell me to pretend I'm going to play a D trumpet on a particular excerpt just to change the transposition on me. Yes, he was a huge proponent of using a D trumpet in the orchestra, but he didn't expect you to also, he'd give you the pro's and cons and let you decide.....I do remember using his Bach D for some stuff though. Huge sounding horn!

He would also get on me a lot about vibrato. Toscanini would often yell at the oboe players back then because the vibrato would make him sick!!! So, Mr. Vacchiano didn't wan't vibrato. (thats how much he respected Toscanini) Of course, we all know that Mr. V used a ton of virato in his playing after Toscanini;)

All in all, he knows more about trumpet playing then most will ever know. After studying with him, I went on to study with another outstanding player who's much younger because I knew some of Mr. Vacchiano's teachings were old and needed to get a fresh new approach for modern auditions, modern technique, etc. But, he gave me so much rep that nothing really surprises me anymore. I feel like I've seen just about all the rep once before. But most of all, I am a better trumpet player because his knowledge it UNBELIEVABLE!!! And he is a very sweet man who truly loves to teach!!!!!

ps.....I remember sitting in his basement in the middle of lessons and he would get phone calls from Schlueter, Manny Laureano, etc. These players all love him and respect him and would just call to say hello!....a bit un-nerving when you're 18 or 19!!!!!

Hope this helps....send me a message if you have any questions!

[Ralph]

Thanks Bartok, that was great. Sometimes studing with one of the great masters can be very revealing. A simple word or sentence they say to you can save you years of "discovery" time. I never had the privilege of studing with a great teacher for the trumpet, but I have for piano. The simplest little tip can turn out to be a great breakthrough. I'm sure it happened to you while studing with Mr. Vacchiano. Interesting he put so much emphisis on transposing. I quess there's a big difference between a great tumpet player and a great musician. It sounds like he was both, but we already knew
that. We all spend a lot of time talking about mouthpieces and other equipment, me included, but they (the truely great players) don't seem to get crippled by those things. They just play.

[308WIN]

Bartok,
Where did you study with "Vacc"?



Rich