The trombone was accepted only grudgingly as a member of the symphony orchestra early in the 19th century. Some few works of the great classical masters, especially Beethoven, called for them.

The trombone had found little use in most of Europe during most of the 18th century. Music that appealed to the lower classes led the revival of the trombone. That explains the disdain.

Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven might have used trombone more extensively if the Austrian traditions of the early 18th century had not gone out of fashion already.

The trombone in Vienna before Beethoven

The Holy Roman Empire, with its capital in Vienna, had a long succession of music-loving monarchs. In the early 18th century, composers there used the trombone as a solo instrument in church music and in private Lenten oratorios for the emperors’ households.

The composition of the Lenten works ended abruptly when Charles VI died in 1740 without a male heir. The War of Austrian Succession ensued. Trombones continued to have a conspicuous role in church music until the 1770s. Then, they started to fall out of favor.

Joseph II began to impose sweeping reforms on the church in 1783. Among them, he forced churches to reduce the size of their musical establishments. As a result, many of the best Austrian composers stopped composing new church music entirely.

Before that time, however, Handel’s music had become known in Vienna. He had had occasion to use trombones in only two of his oratorios, but his trombone writing was unlike anything ever heard in Austria. There, trombones had either slavishly doubled choral parts or played solos. Handel found more flexible ways of using them but wrote no solos.

Haydn showed his familiarity with Handel’s trombone parts as early as 1784 when he included trombones in his revision of Il ritorno di Tobia. His later works show Handel’s influence even more.

A new trombone sound from France

Christoph Willibald Gluck used trombones to masterful effect in some operas he wrote in Vienna. Then he went to Paris. The trombone had only recently been reintroduced there. His rival Niccolò Piccini had used trombones in operas he composed in Naples. Spurred by the example of these two composers, French composers began to write for trombone routinely—especially after the start of the Revolution.

Available players were not very good, and the French considered the nominal bass trombone the principal part. The numerous operas with only one trombone part confine it to the lower part of its register. It essentially doubled the bass line, but only in loud passages and with greatly simplified rhythm.

By the time Beethoven started composing, the standard of trombone playing in Vienna remained higher than in Paris, but hardly anyone specialized in playing trombone. Haydn served as his model for using trombones in choral music. Post-revolutionary French music influenced his use of trombones in orchestral music.

Trombones available in Beethoven’s Vienna

Andreas Nemetz’s Neust Posaun-Schule was published in Vienna in 1827. It surely reflects performance practice there. He wrote that alto, tenor, and bass trombones differed only in the size of the mouthpiece. All were what we would consider a tenor trombone in B-flat. In this, he follows earlier method books by Braun and Frölich.

In fact, Howard Weiner has determined that the virtuoso trombone parts in the previous century were played on a B-flat instrument. Significantly, Nemetz specifies a much wider range than his predecessors. He shows all the pedal notes and notes up to f”, an octave and a fourth higher than middle c. Beethoven had called for that note in Symphony no. 5.

Viennese audiences first heard Beethoven’s major compositions in one of several theaters, each with its own orchestra. Most of them did not include permanent trombonists. Because most of the music they performed had no trombone parts, most of them hired trombonists only on a per-service basis.

Beethoven’s personal relationships with musicians could be turbulent, but he does appear to have kept in mind the strengths and weaknesses of specific musicians who would play his music.

The orchestras and trombonists that premiered Beethoven’s music

At the Burgtheater, Vienna’s principal theater, two court trombonists, Anton Ulbrich and Clemens Messerer, probably covered most of the parts. In 1801, the theater hired Joseph Glöggl as its first permanent trombonist. Before that, he had played viola in the orchestra.

Franz Höbeder apparently played both trumpet and trombone at the Theater an der Wien at the beginning of the 19th century. He served as principal trombone at need. Someone named Rust played second for a while, followed by Philipp Schmidt. Johann Adelmann played third until his death in 1803. It appears that the theater had no permanent replacement for him until Anton Seegner began to cover the part in 1807.

Records indicate only one trombonist, named Seegner, in 1817. Anton’s father Leopold and younger brother Franz also played trombone, so it could be any of them. For that matter, since Höbeder reappears in 1822 records the theater may have actually had a full section as needed the whole time. Johann Werner played in the trombone section starting in 1822.

Like the Burgtheater, the Kärntnertor Theater hired musicians from the court or cathedral as necessary. By 1814, it had a somewhat permanent trombone section of Leopold Seegner, one of the other of his sons, and Georg Kässmayer. Men named Duschke and Hebel joined one of the Seegners in 1822.

Beethoven’s works with trombone

Beethoven included trombones in the following works:

• Christ on the Mount of Olives (1803)
• Leonore/Fidelio (1804-14)
• Symphonies 5-6 (performed 1808)
• March for military band no. 1 (1808)
• Die Ruinen von Athen (1811, with additional music, 1822)
• König Stephan (1811)
• Equali (1812)
• Wellingtons Sieg (1813)
• Der glorreiche Augenblick (1814)
• Es ist vollbracht (1815)
• Die Weihe des Hauses (1822)
• Missa Solemnis (1823)
• Ninth Symphony (performed 1824)

Christus am Ölberge

Beethoven premiered the oratorio Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) at the Burgtheater in 1803. It opens with a dark E minor arpeggio in the bassoon, horns, and two lower trombones.

Theodore Albrecht points to this unique color as evidence that Beethoven had the personnel of the orchestra in mind. Rust and Adelmann played at the opening and Höbeder joined them later.

Adelmann played the nominal bass trombone part on a B-flat instrument. Beethoven carefully avoided a low E-flat below that instrument’s range. If he had had true bass trombone, he surely would have used that note.

Leonore/Fidelio

Beethoven started work on his opera Leonore (later renamed Fidelio) early in 1804 for performance at the Theater an der Wien. Adelmann’s place had not been filled after his death. Probably for that reason, most of the scenes with trombones call for only two.

The overture (Leonore no. 2) and the finales of Acts II and III use three trombones, but the added part is written very conservatively as if Beethoven knew that he could only count on a weak player.

Symphonies no. 5 and 6

For his benefit concert at the Theater an der Wien in 1808, Beethoven presented his Symphonies no. 5 and 6.

He apparently worked out the orchestration of the Pastoral Symphony earlier. It includes parts for only two trombones. That may indicate continuing uncertainty about the trombone section after Adelmann’s death.

On the other hand, he must have known that someone with an exceptionally strong high register would play first trombone when he finished Symphony no. 5.

Some large benefit concerts

The Theater an der Wien hosted a huge benefit concert for victims of the Napoleonic wars in 1813. A composite orchestra of about 120 players performed. The concert included Wellingtons Sieg. The piece was played on five later concerts with a comparably large orchestra.

The concert may have used only the three trombones of the Kärntnertor Theater (Leopold Seegner, one or the other of his sons, and Georg Kässmayer). Only a partial payroll has survived, so other trombonists may have participated. If not, so few trombones in such a large orchestra may indicate the rarity of good trombonists in Vienna.

In any case, Vienna lacked the number and quality of trombonists in the early decades of the 19th century that it had in the middle of the 18th century. Otherwise, Beethoven and other composers surely would have used trombones more frequently and more imaginatively.

These large concerts enhanced Beethoven’s popularity. The Kärntnertor Theater commissioned a revised version of Fidelio in 1814. He removed trombones from several scenes, another indication of his lack of faith in available trombonists.

Symphony no. 9 and Missa solemnis

Before Beethoven composed his Symphony no. 9, a new director of the  Kärntnertor Theater had dismissed most of the musicians. Although he threatened to move the premiere of the two works out of town, it took place there in 1824. The concert also included movements from Missa Solemnis.

Although Albrecht never mentions him, Andreas Nemetz may have been part of the trombone section.

Three equali

Early in November 1812, Beethoven traveled to Linz for a private confrontation with his brother.  The music director at the Linz cathedral, Franz Xaver Glöggl, served as mediator.

Linz had an apparently unique practice for important funerals. Trombonists from the town band played what Glöggl called an “equale” outside the church in alternation with a choir singing the Miserere.

The trombonists played similar music from the balcony of the town hall on All Souls’ Day in the morning and again in the evening.

Glöggl asked Beethoven to write some similar pieces, and Beethoven agreed. He apparently composed three pieces on the spot. His notation became larger and more hurried as he worked. Each piece is shorter than the one before, with fewer indications of dynamics and articulations. Apparently, Beethoven wrote the pieces willingly but with progressively waning enthusiasm.

Glöggl gave the manuscript to the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger sometime before 1820. They are included in a comprehensive manuscript of Beethoven’s complete works that Haslinger was working on.

Trombones at Beethoven’s funeral

When Beethoven was on his deathbed, Haslinger took the Three Equali to Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried to set add suitable text. Seyfried transposed the first and third a step lower for the sake of a better singing key. The first one received the text Miserere mei and the third Amplius lava me.

Four trombones (two brothers Böck, Weidl, and Tuschky)and a chorus of sixteen played and sang in alternation, just as Glöggl’s writings describe a first class funeral. The trombones, of course, played in the lower key to match the singers.

A choral rendition of the second equale was performed, with text by Franz Grillparzer, at the dedication of Beethoven’s gravestone seven and a half months later.

English audiences first heard the Three Equali in 1890. They soon became a staple at important funerals in London.

Sources:
Albrecht, Theodore. “Beethoven’s Brass Players: New Discoveries in Composer-Performer Relations.” Historic Brass Society Journal 18 (2006): 47-72.
Guion, David M. A History of the Trombone. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press,  2010.
_____. The Trombone: Its History and Music, 1697-1811. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1988.
_____. “What Handel Taught the Viennese about the Trombone.” Historic Brass Society Journal 15 (2003): 291-321.
Cloutier, Daniel. “Beethoven’s Orchestration of the Trombone.” D.M.A. Essay, West Virginia University, 2009.
Weiner, Howard. “Andreas Nemetz’s Neust Posaun-Schule: An Early Trombone Method.” Historic Brass Society Journal 7 (1995): 12-35.
_____. “Beethoven’s Equali (WoO 30): A New Perspective.” Historic Brass Society Journal 14 (2002): 215-77.
_____. “When Is an Alto Trombone an Alto Trombone? When Is a Bass Trombone a Bass Trombone?––The Makeup of The Trombone Section in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Orchestras.” Historic Brass Society Journal 17 (2005): 37-79.