A poster by C. Burckardt advertising for a circus, ca. 1880

By about 1750, the trombone had nearly disappeared. Many musical centers in the Holy Roman Empire continued to use it. Otherwise, it was found only in isolated cities in Germany and Italy. By 1850, trombones could be found all over the world, including places that had never used it before. What happened?

As for Germany, the town band in Leipzig, known as Stadtpfeifer, attracted the earliest scholarly attention. It comprised a group of trombone and cornett players. Its proud history dated back to the 15th century. By the beginning of the 18th century, such bands were so old-fashioned that all German courts and most German cities started to replace them with newer ensembles. Not Leipzig.

Leipzig did not update the makeup or function of its band, either. As director of music at the Thomaskirche, J.S. Bach supervised it. He used trombones in just over a dozen pieces. By that time the band didn’t play well. Its instruments were in poor condition. The trombone’s persistence in Leipzig and a few other towns, then, had almost no role in its eventual revival.

The Moravian community of Herrnhut, on the other hand, developed a new style of trombone playing. Moravian missionaries took their trombones all over the world. Less well known, the trombone not only persisted in a few Italian cities, but Italian composers discovered new ways to use it. When the trombone came back into international prominence, it was almost like a new instrument.

Sources:

Carter, Stewart. The Trombone in the Renaissance: A History in Pictures and Documents. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press, 2012.
Guion, David M. A History of the Trombone. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2010.
_____. "The Missing Link: The Trombone in Italy in the 17th and 18th Centuries." Early Music 34 (2006): 225-32.
_____. "What Handel Taught the Viennese about the Trombone." Historic Brass Society Journal 15 (2003): 291-321.

Photo credits:
High school band. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Library of Congress collection via Picryl