El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-01-21
CONCERT BANDS.
Sketch of the Development in Military
Concert Band Instrumentation.
(COncluded from SATURDAYS Dai1y).

| polish OF execution and quality OF tone
possible on slide are out of the Ques
! ton with a valve trombone. Half tones
! for tie entire scale can be prod on
slide the same as with strings: and in
point of brilliaucy of performance the
valve can not be men toned in the same
breath with the slide instrument. In
proof of this assertion witness the mar
velOus work of Fred Inness and Roger
A. Pryor who have played on q slide
| the most difficult of cOrnet music, trip
pie tongueing and all. The tone from
a clear bore is much superior in rich
ness of resonance and carrying quail
ties to the broken work of the valve
trombone.
In the line of bass horns, these heavy
instruments can now be had in
B flat, BIB flat, Q, E flat, EE flat and f
And when to a heavy tuba section is
added the heavy bass reeds, the variety
| and depth of organ tones that can be
produced is both beautiful and start
ling. Sousa has shown what may be
accomplished in this way by his ar
rangement of Sullivan's Lost Chord,
anu his diapason effects are remark
able.
| The model or standard Instruments
ton for a concert band varies with
| different bandmaSters. the main differ
nee being the mum Der of instruments
n the various classes, and the addition
| of more rare varieties of instruments.
Taking Sousa's as the standard in
| strumentation, the arrangement is as
follows: 2 E fiat, Is B flat, l alto, l
bass, clarinets: , oboes, 2 bassoons, 4
comets, 2 Hungarian trumpets, 4
French horns, euphoniums, 3 slide
from bones, saxaphones, l piccolo, ,
tenor flutes; B fiat, f flats, , BIB fiat
tubas, with two and three men in 1.-The
| battery" that is the drums and traps.
| 1t was Sousa's intention to add a pedal
| bass clarinet, an English horn, cornu-
| phone and two bass flutes to his band,
| but at this time of writing | do not
know to what extent he has carried out
his Intentions. The above band if put
IN the street, would substitute alto
| norns for the French, omit the flutes,
| and perhaps the bassoons. Some band
masters would add E flat comets, and
double the from bones Increasing the
| trombones would be all right, but L
would have none of those horrid things,
the 4 flat comets, as gift.
Sousa's band may justly be taken as
| the standard for an American band.
There are others that more or less
closely approximate, such as the
United States marine band, Gilmores
band, Inness' concert band,
ohannon's Thirteenth New York
regiment band, Rogers Seventh New
York regiment band, Reeves American
band of Providence, Finneys Iowa
state band, Brook Second Illinois regi-
ment band, the Chicago marine band,
ana others. But all things considered,
| the general public looks to Sousa's as
| the finest military concert band in the
country.
Foreign bandmasters have their own
ideas of Instrumentation, and special
prominence is often given to classes OF
instruments little recognized in the
United States. The Mexican bands
give little attention to reeds. There
was but seven clarinetS and one bas-
son in the famous eight cavalry band
! OF the City of Mexico where here last:
but then there is a heavy section of
saxaphones, an instrument that has
quite captured the Mexican fancy. 1t
Its also interesting to note, while
speaking of Mexican Instrumentation,
that to the slide from bone thu Mexican
| is practically a stranger. The slide to
the Aztec mind appears as much en-
velnped in mystery as the locomotive
is to an Indian. so the valve from bone
is used Heavy cOrnet and horn Sec
lions seem to be characteristic of En-
glish bands; and in France the sax
horn holds an exalted place. the
celebrated band of the Guarde Re-
publicaine is loaded to the gunwa.e
with sax horns.
IN military concert band progress in
this country, 2. S. Gilmore was above
all the pioneer; land by the tremendous
force of his individual personality and
sheer grit, he brushed aside opposition
toithe higher grades of music, and'raised
up his fine command to performing not
merely successfully, but artistically,
works hitherto considered as possible
OF performance only on strings. Mr..
Gilmore made the prophesy years ago,
that he would so raise the standard of
concert band performance that any
thing possible by an orchestra would
be possible with an entirely wind band.
For this, Mr.. Gilmore was quietly
laughed at, especially by orchestra
musicians. 1.-The eyede-ah' of the
finish and execution of wind band be
ing equal to that of an orchestra.
Phudge. Mr.. Gilmore said nothing
but sawed wood''-a whole lot of it,
and kept on with his work. That he
succeeded, needs no confirmation here,
for it is matter of recor1-the world
Knows it. And when he died, MIR
Gilmore left scores of bandmasterS fol
lowing enthusiastically in the path he
had blazed out aud scored for their
guidance.
Four years ago, orchestra musicians
being played staccato on a clarinet
But it was not long before they were
convinced of their mistake, for Stengler
of Sousa's band does this very thing
every time he plays the brilliant Ca
denzas in the Paderewski Minuet.
Moreover, the tones so peculiar to
strings, and which so many musicians
declared could not be even approx
mately reproduced by any wind band
com bination, have been just 50 approx
imately reproduced since the introduce
ton of the saxaphone. Some concert
wind bands have added stringed double
BASES to their Instrumentation; and the
German infantry band at the World :
fair had four OF these. Cappa was the
first bandmaster to try this device and
to the writer that once having intro
duceG the feature he could not get
along without it. The stringed double
bass does fill in'' wonderfully well.
but to musicians more intent on concert
Instrumentation by wind alone. as apart
from strings, this arrangement appears