The ensemble TIBICINES performs on instruments that resemble their 17th and 18th century counterparts down to the minutest detail.
The Renaissance trumpet, which remained virtually unchanged throughout the baroque and classical era, produced sound via the natural overtone series, an acoustic phenomenon occurring in Nature.
In the 1960’s it was deemed impossible to recreate this forgotten technique and so German acousticians developed a system of vent-holes which allows the modern player access to the repertoire of the baroque trumpet but it changes the quality of the sound.
Around a dozen recordings exist today which make use of the originally intended baroque trumpets not involving vent-holes. The level of difficulty of the pieces in this programme would have been deemed unplayable only a few years ago.
Today they astonish the specialists of early music: it is no coincidence that leading ensembles and orchestras are increasingly recruiting instrumentalists prepared to perform on the originally intended instrument rather than the vent-holed version, TIBICINES gathers the best of them.
The performers involved here are professionals regularly engaged by the most important European baroque orchestras (La Petite Bande, Orchestra of the 18th Century, Les Arts Florissants, La Grande Ecurie, Le Concert Spirituel, etc).
This natural instrument has a strong impact, the listener is bewitched, how is it possible to produce such variety and quality of sound from a tube held in one hand?
Initial novelty is transformed by the natural seductivity, the charm and elegant beauty of the sound, mirroring how the composer’s intentions and the performance practice of the day.
This is how the music was, this is how it sounded.
In many cases both the trumpets and the fifes also cross the portals of the churches to play inside them on special occasions. This is the house of Das Kindl-Woegen auf Weinacht, composed by Bartholomäus Riedl.
Compositions that – together with other copious examples – bring news of the participation for the Christmas holiday of this formation.
Aufzug mit 6. Trompeten
REcens FAbricatus LAbor, Oder Neugebachene Taffel-Schnitz Von Mancherley lustigen Rencken und Schwencken zusammengestickt mit Noten außgespickt und under fröliche Compagnien geschickt damit ihnen Essen und Trincken und denen darbey aufwartenden Musicanten die Spendage desto besser zu statten kommen möge […], of the composer, well-read man and theorist Daniel Speer, was published in Frankfurt am Main in 1685.
Entertaining the people during meal services was one of the duties of the court trumpeters and the Aufzuge present in this work belonged to these occasions.
We should emphasize the use of the acute dominant, fifth over the tonica, in March oder gemeine Schläg auf der Heerpaucken and in Würbel, as Speer himself indicates in the chapter dedicated to the Herrpauken.
Another peculiarity picked up in the present recording is the use of the sottobasso, never used in modern times.
The Sottobasso or Flattergrob (which played the first harmonic), was a complement to the fixed parts of Basso or Grob (second partial) and Vulgano, Volgan or Faul-Stimm (third partial), and therefore as a part ad libitum.
The two Aufzuge of 1685 were republished with light variations in Grundrichtiger Unterricht der musikalischen Kunst oder Vierfaches musikalisches Kleeblatt, at Ulm in 1687 and in the second edition in 1697.
Here the title quotes:
Jetz folgen ein paar Aufzüge mit 6. Trompeten darzu die siebende auch noch kommen kan nemlich im Flatter-Grob [… ],
and although Mersenne back in 1636 lets us know that the sottobasso fell into disuse, Speer testifies a practical still in vogue at the end of the century.