Trombones with Bells Over the Shoulder

The two trombones featured here are from the collection of Ron Fabec, instructor at the New Mexico Military Institute. They are both in high pitch, the tenor in C and the bass in F. Ron purchased the unsigned tenor at an auction in France, so it is assumed that it was never used in an American band. The bass, however, was purchased at an auction in Maine. For many decades, it had been used to decorate a set of moose antlers in a bar in Harpswell, Maine and was believed to have been used in bands in New England originally.

Only one other bass trombone with bell over the shoulder is known in the US, an unsigned example in the Pillsbury Collection at the Henry Ford Museum. Daniel Pillsbury reported that this bass trombone was played by Mr. Rapelyea in the first band formed in New Britain, Connecticut in 1833.

The construction details of the instrument pictured here indicate that it was made in the 1840s at the latest. The tenor appears to have been made later, but it is impossible to date either of these instruments with certainty.

The signature on the bass trombone: “Pfretzschner & Comp.” might indicate that it was originally sold in an English speaking country. However, a correspondence with Gerald Pfretzschner, 4th great grandson of Carl Gustav Adolph Pfretzschner, provided a page from the 1834 Leipzig trade fair address books listing the name “Pfretzschner u. (und) Comp.”. That was the name from 1834 until 1853, narrowing down the possible years that the bass trombone may have been made.

The Pfretzschner family of Markneukirchen, Germany is very well know as makers of string instruments but there were at least two family members that were members of the brass instrument maker’s guild in that city as well. Another, Wilhelm Pfretzschner, who apprenticed with the large brass instrument maker CG Schuster, was known to have come to the US, but research has found no details of where he lived or worked. Also, this was after 1857, likely too late for this instrument. It is certainly possible that he made this instrument in the US, but it seems more likely that it was imported from Germany. It is also possible that he imported parts from a more established shop to build his instruments here.

Gerald Pfretzschner states that brass instruments were not made by the family, but three members were known to trade in brass instruments. Further, Johann Carl Pfretzschner was a member of the violin maker’s guilds in both Markneukirchen and Klingenthal, allowing him to trade in instruments made in both cities. This would encompass more than 40 different small shops (master and one or two apprentices and/or journeymen) making brass instruments. Imports to the US would have been well established by 1820, through individuals that immigrated to Pennsylvania and New York from Saxony. Many well known examples from the 1820s to the 1860s are signed “Klemm & Bro, Philad”.

Most readers may not be familiar with slide trombones with bells aimed backwards like these, even if they know about the huge popularity of military bands with valve instruments and bells over the shoulder in the US during the mid-19th century. Little research has been done into these earlier instruments. When viewing images of bands in the early and mid-19th century with instruments that appeared to look like these, one could conclude that the artist was getting details wrong.

An interesting image of the Boston Brigade Band, published in “Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion” on August 9th, 1851 is shown below. The text describes the band as having a new complete set of instruments “with the bells all opening back, and pointing over the shoulders of the performers, giving the company the great advantage of hearing every note of each instrument”. Of course they were referring to the troops marching behind the band.

Closely studying this image, the artist’s rendition is imperfect in three of the instruments immediately to the right of center, that have loops in the bell section like trombones, but no hand slide section nor valves. Of course, it’s possible that there were “natural trumpets” or horns with bells over the shoulder used in the Boston Brass Band at this time, but it seems more likely that the artist was making a slight mistake in representing alto trombones or valve instruments. The slide trombones on the left are very accurately engraved and the valve instruments on the right are almost as well rendered. This makes me confident that, in that year, this band contained a combination of slide and valve instruments, all with bells over the shoulder, probably imported from France and/or Saxony. There are no known examples of slide trombones with bells over the shoulder that were made in the US. We know now that slide trombones disappeared from American brass bands almost completely several years after this depiction, being considered old-fashioned, with an archaic mechanism.

Earlier images of military bands, both in the US and Europe, show trombones like these playing along with horns, serpents, bassoons, oboes and clarinets. In fact, trombones with bells over the shoulder were used throughout Europe for at least several hundred years before the transition to valve instruments in the popular bands of the US.

Since I don’t intend to make a study of this long history, but find it fascinating, I recommend that you visit Will Kimball’s web pages on trombone history. In one page, he has a remarkable collection of images of slide trombones with bells facing backwards, including a video. While one might argue that some of these were mistakes by the artists, it seems very clear that the idea lasted for centuries.

The last image here, is Mr. Fabec holding his two extremely rare trombones.

Eric Totaman (horncollector.com) has a much better preserved example of a trombone with bell over the shoulder in Bb. This one has retained it’s original case and has an attachment to convert it to bell forward.