Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 61) in a portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, copy or second version of his 1746 canvas.

Johann Sebastian Bach made little use of trombones. Anything he did, however, is worth study. For one thing, as it turns out, Bach composed the earliest extant music that calls for soprano trombone.

One piece in particular shows how well he understood the trombone. A complaint he wrote to his superiors explains why he didn’t make more extensive use of it. 

In accordance with tradition, when Bach called for trombones at all, they usually doubled choir parts. Most often, he used alto, tenor, and bass trombones to double the respective voices, and a cornett to double the sopranos. Occasionally, he used only a bass trombone. German churches had followed that practice for centuries.

Bach’s occasional use of soprano trombone, however, was novel. Michael Praetorius provided the standard description of the various sizes of trombone in 1619. There, he used “descant” trombone as a synonym for “alto” trombone.

The earliest extant soprano trombone was built in 1677. Johann Kuhnau, Bach’s immediate predecessor at Thomaskirche, complained about the trombones in an inventory in 1702:

Since the trombones are good church instruments, the ones here, however, being very old and beat up and therefore not suitable to be used, it would be necessary to acquire new ones and namely a pair of soprano trombones in their stead.

Apparently, the city government followed his recommendation. If so, the trombones at Bach’s disposal should have been in good shape. The players? That’s a different story.

Bach’s musicians

Stadtpfeifer performing from a tower. Illustrirter Katalog der internationalen Kunstausstellung im Königl. Glaspalaste in München 1883

Bach started working in Leipzig as cantor at Thomaskirche in 1723. It didn’t take long for him to become dissatisfied with conditions there.

In 1730, he sent a 10-page message to the Leipzig town council to complain about the lack of funding and respect for his choir and orchestra.

He enumerated 20 instrumentalists he considered necessary. Then he noted:

The number of personnel designated for church music is 8 people: 4 wind band players (StadtPfeifern), 3 violinists and an assistant. (It would be better for me not to comment on their capabilities and musical knowledge.) However, it should be recognized that some are retired and some are out of the level of practice that they should maintain.

He identified the wind band players as two trumpets and two oboes. The assistant played bassoon. His first trumpet was the excellent Gottfried Reiche.

The city declined to hire other musicians for the church to supplement the town’s wind players and violinists. Bach had to recruit students from the university and the church’s school to fill in. But money to pay them a small stipend was no longer available. And so the university students weren’t, either.

Nowhere in this document does Bach mention the trombone, but members of the town band had all been trained to play any wind instrument. For that matter, so had the violinists. Wind players had higher status than string players in civic music ensembles. Everyone hired as a city string player aspired to a promotion to the wind band.

It played twice-daily concerts from a tower on cornetts and trombones. Reiche’s Vier und zwanzig neue Quatricinia for cornett and three trombones provides a sample of its repertoire.

All the students probably had similar training in hope of one day securing a position somewhere in a town band. Therefore, Bach had all the trombonists he wanted or needed for any occasion. Just not good ones. He apparently called on trombones to reinforce a choir that wasn’t any better.

Trombones in Bach’s cantatas

Frontispiece to Musikalisches Lexicon (1732) by Johann Georg Walther depicting a performance of a Bach cantata, Leipzig Stadtpfeiffer participating

Bach’s use of trombones appears mainly restricted to his first three years in Leipzig. He wrote some cantatas before he started working for Thomaskirche, but he did not originally call for trombones in any of them. He added trombones to some of the earlier works he used in Leipzig.

Here, in order of first performance, are the cantatas with trombones:

• BWV 23, 4th movement only: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. February 7, 1723
• BWV 21, 11th movement only: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass trombones. June 13, 1723
• BWV 25, movements 1 and 6: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. August 29, 1723
• BWV 64, movements 1, 2, 4, and 8: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. December 27, 1723
• BWV 2, movements 1 and 6: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass trombones. June 18, 1724
• BWV 135, movement 1: bass trombone. June 25, 1724
• BWV 101, movements 1 and 7: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. August 13, 1724
• BWV 96: movement 1: 1 cornett on October 18, 1724, but soprano trombone used instead for a later performance.
• BWV 38, movements 1 and 6: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass trombones. October 29, 1724
• BWV 121, movements 1 and 6: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. December 26, 1724
• BWV 3, movement 1: bass trombone. January 14, 1725
• BWV 4, movements 2, 3, and 8. 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. April 1, 1725
• BWV 68, movement 5: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. May 21, 1725
• BWV 28, movements 2 and 6: 1 cornett and alto, tenor, and bass trombones. December 39, 1725

The trombone parts in BWV 25 differ from the others. The trombones harmonize a chorale tune played by the cornett. It is part of the orchestral accompaniment and not sung. In every other case, the trombones play the same music as the corresponding vocal part.

In later performances of these cantatas, Bach may or may not have included the trombone or trombones. He never wrote or added trombone parts for Thomaskirche again.

One exceptional piece: O Jesu Christ mein’s Lebens Licht

A fresco by Johann Michael Rottmayr in Karlskirche (St. Charles’s Church), Vienna, 1725-1730)

In 1742, Bach supplied music for a funeral: “O Jesu Christ, mein’s Lebens Licht” (BWV 118). It is his only piece with wind band accompaniment.

It requires two instruments he calls “lituus” (probably a horn in high B-flat), one cornetto, and three trombones. This instrumentation was very suitable for outdoor performance. Violins would have only gone out of tune. For some reason, it has become known as Cantata 118, although Bach called it a motet.

The work is a single movement of 108 measures, based on a single hymn stanza. The cornett and trombones play throughout. The litui drop out during two of the choral sections.

When the chorus sings, the cornett and trombones double it, but not as strictly as in all of Bach’s other pieces. The alto and tenor trombones actually embellish some of the choral lines. The bass trombone strictly doubles the choral basses less than half the time. Otherwise, it plays an independent instrumental bass.

Since the trombones play even in the absence of voices, their parts have a wider range and a more disjunct line than any of Bach’s other trombone parts. Bach clearly understood the trombone.

If he had had more competent players, he might have written more extensively for trombone than he did. In that case, those trombone parts would probably have had a more interesting role than merely supporting voices.

Nine days after the funeral, Bach led an indoor performance of the motet. He replaced the wind instruments with a standard string orchestra.

Sources:
Bach’s orchestra / Charles Sanford Terry (Oxford University Press, 1932).
J.S. Bach’s use of trombones: utilization and chronology / Thomas Braatz, Bach-Cantatas.com. 2010
Short but most necessary draft for a well-appointed church music (1730) / J.S. Bach. Translated from Bach-Dokumente, Vol I (1963)
The soprano trombone hoax / Howard Weiner. Historic Brass Society Journal 13 (2001):153-54.
The trombone: its history and music, 1697-1811 / David M. Guion (Gordon and Breach, 1988)