André Lafosse published the first edition of his monumental Méthode complète de trombone à coulisse (Complete Method for Slide Trombone) in 1921. He revised it, adding a third volume, in 1946. In 1948, he became professor of trombone at the Paris Conservatory of Music. During his tenure there, he published three more extensive pedagogical works for trombone.

By the time Lafosse retired in 1960, the trombone, its technique, and philosophy of brass instruction had changed drastically. He had resisted all the changes.  His trombone method has more in common with that of Antoine Dieppo, the Conservatory’s first trombone professor, than with any of the important pedagogical treatises that appeared within a decade of his retirement.

A brief overview of trombone instruction at the Paris Conservatory

The Paris Conservatory offered trombone instruction from its establishment in 1795 until about 1802. For practical purposes, the French tradition of teaching trombone began with the publication of Victor Cornette’s trombone method in 1830.

The Conservatory appointed Felix Vobaron provisional professor of trombone in 1833. When it established a permanent trombone class in 1836, it appointed Antoine Dieppo to teach it. Both of these men published trombone methods.

Cornette’s method, with new text by Jerome Proctor and some additional etudes, is widely used today. Vobaron’s method remains in print. To my knowledge, no edition of Dieppo’s method appeared between a 1902 publication by Carl Fischer and a 2016 digital edition by qPress.

Beginning with Dieppo, all the trombone professors performed in orchestras and eventually became principal trombonist in the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Their students played there along with them. They learned, therefore, both in the classes and in the orchestra.

Paul Delisse, Louis Allard, and Henri Couillaud held the trombone professorship between Antoine Dieppo and André Lafosse.

Lafosse represents the culmination of the tradition of trombone pedagogy Cornette, Vobaron, and Dieppo started. In fact, Lafosse was the first trombone professor who had not studied with his immediate predecessor. Both Lafosse and Couillaud studied with Louis Allard.

Biographical sketch of André Lafosse

André Lafosse was born in Marly-le-roi, near Paris, on March 13, 1890. His father was an amateur cornetist and leader of the city band. Naturally, he, his brother, and his sister all learned music. Marcel, the younger brother, played trumpet in the Boston Symphony Orchestra for many years.

Although raised in a musical family, André did not at first seek a musical career. He took a job as a roofer but suffered vertigo. At his father’s suggestion, he turned his entire attention to the trombone. His parents arranged for him to study with Johannes Rochut, one of the most famous trombonists in the world.

Lessons with Rochut prepared him to enter the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with Louis Allard. He won First Prize in 1908, an achievement that guaranteed finding employment in a French orchestra. His career was interrupted by World War One, when he served as a stretcher bearer and was taken prisoner by the Germans.

After the war, Lafosse found a position with the orchestra of the Opéra Comique in 1918. After two years, he moved to the Opéra. He had developed an interest in teaching and started work on the first edition of his trombone method, which appeared in 1921. He was also a member of the Lamoureux Orchestre.

When Allard retired in 1925, Lafosse applied to be his successor. So did the Opéra’s principal trombonist Henri Couillaud, who had been with the orchestra since 1904. The more experienced Couillaud won the audition, but he used Lafosse’s method rather than writing his own. Lafosse continued to teach privately and gained a stronger reputation as a performer.

Lafosse as professor of trombone

When Couillaud retired in 1948, Lafosse easily obtained the professorship. He developed a reputation of working on technical aspects of trombone playing more than interpretive aspects according to Jean Douay, who studied with Lafosse in the 1950s. Lafosse’s “relations with his students were, for those who deserved it, marked with great courtesy.”

Lafosse continued the practice of earlier Conservatory professors of transcribing solos. His edition of most but not all movements of J.S. Bach’s cello suites is transposed a fourth higher than the original. This transposition is necessary to play the suites on a triggerless tenor trombone. He also transcribed G.F. Handel’s G minor oboe concerto and transposed it to F minor.

Lafosse’s entire approach to teaching trombone depends on the legacy of his predecessors at the Conservatory. It shows little other influence. Besides what he composed or arranged himself, all the solos and exercises he used were composed or arranged by French composers and teachers, most of whom had ties to the Conservatory. He did not limit his teaching of orchestral literature to French composers, but he did limit it to the repertoire performed by French orchestras.

He taught and wrote his treatises for a limited objective: to prepare his students to perform in orchestras and teach trombone effectively. If trombone students at the Conservatory had any interest in other kinds of music, they had to explore it on their own.

Lafosse’s method

The first two volumes of the method thoroughly cover all aspects of trombone playing for the repertoire as it stood in the early 20th century. It progresses rapidly with scales, arpeggios, interval studies, and articulation. It includes etudes, duets, and transcriptions of music by Handel, Bach, Mozart, and Bordogni. The first two volumes had 193 pages. With the addition of the third volume, it is 280 pages.

 Lafosse’s text is among the most comprehensive descriptions of the tenor trombone and its technique ever written. His etudes are still widely used. The contest pieces they prepare students to learn still comprise the core of the trombone’s solo repertoire. On the other hand, the bass trombone is almost an afterthought, with very few pages devoted to it.

As long as Paris Conservatory contest pieces remain as core solo repertoire, Lafosse’s preparatory etudes will still be helpful. His method will most likely never suffer the eclipse of Dieppo’s method, or indeed the numerous French methods that appeared between the two.

The method includes etudes intended to help with the technical problems of particular solos or orchestral excerpts. Lafosse did not hesitate to provide such etudes as needed to his students.

Although Lafosse’s teaching material shows no influence of non-French music, it has had a tremendous international influence. In fact, 1946 edition of his method was printed with French, English, German, and Spanish, on each page.

Lafosse’s preference for the small-bore tenor trombone

Except for foreign students, Lafosse did not allow any of his students to play anything except the small-bore French trombone. He refused to discuss using a trigger. As the illustration from the Courtois catalog shows, triggers were available on French-made instruments. Therefore, his objection cannot have been that the trigger was somehow antithetical to French music.

Despite Lafosse’s objections, it was during his professorship that Europeans began to adopt American-made large-bore trombones. Denis Wick, a British contemporary of Lafosse’s students, had a very different attitude toward small-bore trombones. “At loud levels the sound deteriorated and, save in the hands of the very best players, the sound too often simulated tearing canvas.”

While Lafosse clung to old-fashioned ideals of French trombones, his students needed more modern equipment for their professional engagements. They had to conform to both ideals.

Besides insisting on small-bore trombones, Lafosse rejected such modern jazz-influenced techniques as slide vibrato, glissandos, and mutes, considering them vulgar.

Some of Lafosse’s other works

Shortly after assuming the post of professor of trombone, Lafosse issued his School of Sight Reading and Style for Tenor Trombone. I have been unable to find an explanation of why it was published in New York.

Published in five volumes, it comprises 150 half-page etudes, 30 in each volume, arranged in progressive difficulty. The first volume uses only bass clef. The second volume adds tenor clef and the fifth volume adds alto clef. Lafosse called the first volume “easy,” although probably no one else does. He called the last “extremely difficult.” It comprises ten exercises in alto clef, ten in alto and tenor, and ten using all three clefs.

The pieces that use more than one clef change clefs frequently. The clef changes do not correspond with changes of register as the standard literature does. Also, the etudes often stray far from the nominal key, requiring many accidentals. Anyone who can sightread these pieces can tackle almost anything else.

Conservatory director Paul Delvincourt instituted a Pedagogic Studies program. At his request, Lafosse issued Traité de pédagogie du trombone a coulisse (Treatise on Teaching the Slide Trombone) in 1955. It is cross-referenced with the method and is intended to instruct trombone teachers. Among other subjects, it points out common faults among trombone students and suggests how the teacher can correct them.

In 1956, Lafosse published his Vade mecum du tromboniste (The Trombonist’s Vade Mecum) to prepare students for their advanced examinations. It concerns the technical and musical complexities of the contest pieces they would likely prepare. For students who had completed their studies, it would help them keep up their technique. And if they intended to become trombone teachers, they could use the Vade Mecum in conjunction with the method and the treatise.

Thus, Lafosse left behind hundreds of pages of music and text intended to be useful to his students throughout their professional lives.

Related posts:

Antoine Dieppo, French trombone virtuoso and teacher
Felix Vobaron: the first French trombone soloist
Learning to play the trombone: French and Anglo-American teaching
Victor Cornette and his trombone method

Sources:

André Lafosse (1890-1975) Maître es-trombone / Jean Douay, Brass Bulletin 70 (1990):56-60
French tenor trombone solo literature and pedagogy since 1836 / Jeffrey Jon Lemke (DMA essay, University of Arizona, 1983)
A history of the trombone / David M. Guion (Scarecrow Press, 2010)
Philosophical implications on trombone performance and pedagogy in André Lafosse’s curriculum at the Paris Conservatory / Brian English (DMA Essay, University of North Texas, 2005)
Slide trombone teaching and method books in France (1794-1960) / Benny Sluchin and Raymond Lapie, Historic Brass Society Journal 9 (1997):4-29