Keith McGowan looks at the history of the sackbut family and the contemporary market

The 17th century polymath Michael Praetorius described the sackbut as the "wind instrument par excellence in concerted music of any kind". Its success was due in part to the fact that the modus operandi of the sackbut, using a double slide, allows it to play with perfect tuning at more or less any pitch, whereas instruments with finger holes are usually made to work optimally at only one pitch. This facility would be invaluable when the pitch might vary enormously from one location to another, or even within one establishment. The sackbut's versatility also derives from the fact that it could be played quietly enough to accompany solo voices, violins and even flutes, while the same instrument could accompany the shawms and cornetts in tower music and parades.

This instrument with a double slide developed out of its 15th century equivalent that had only a single slide, the slide trumpet. Such proto-sackbuts were to be heard all over Europe in the ceremonial bands of the great families, usually in partnership with a shawm and a bombard (alto shawm), an ubiquitous trio, often referred to as the alta capella. While with the sackbut one holds the instrument still and moves the slide, the slide trumpet conversely requires the movement of virtually the whole instrument to change the pitch of a note. However, the best practitioners of this instrument today perform astonishing feats of agility on it, making it the equivalent of the bombard in an alta capella.

Exactly when and where the double slide first appeared is uncertain, though it was probably developed to create a tenor pitch instrument for the alta capella. As the single-slided trumpet could not play in the tenor register, this led to some experimentation with the slide principle to find the perfect tenor trombone. This perfected tenor emerged towards the end of the 15th century, possibly at the workshop of Hans Neuschel the Elder in Nuremberg, as he is credited with "making significant improvements in the design of the Posaun in 1498" by a contemporary writer. One sackbut from the Neuschel workshop survives. It bears the date 1557 and is typical of the 16th century sackbut in that the braces which hold the slide together are made of flat brass sheet, clipped onto the slide with decorative clasps. This means that the two slide stays can be removed entirely, whereas the modern trombone slide has round metal tubes which are joined permanently to the branches of the slide. In consequence, the entire instrument can be dismantled to its constituent tubes, like a baroque trumpet. Characteristically, the 16th century sackbut has a bell section of light construction with a gentle flare, ending in a relatively small bell, strengthened by a metal band or garland. The bore diameter of the sackbut was usually small, which, in company with the small, light bell, makes for a delicate piano and a bright forte. Few original sackbut mouthpieces survive, but those that do show a preference for a flat rim and sharp shoulders where the cup enters the bore, while the profile of a modern mouthpiece is more rounded.

A feature of the tenor sackbut, compared with its modern counterpart, is that it was pitched in A, whereas the modern trombone is in B flat. It is likely that the transition had something to do with the introduction of round stays during the second quarter of the 17th century, at which point the trombone took on virtually the same form it has today.

The sackbut was in demand during the 16th century, particularly because of its vocal qualities, and was commonly used in grand churches and cathedrals all over Europe to accompany the choir. This sonority was especially popular in Britain in the years before the Commonwealth, in spite of official suspicion of its "Popish" overtones. A number of prominent musicians of the 16th century started their careers on the sackbut, including the Italian composer Bartolemeo Tromboncino and the Dutch publisher Tilman Susato. The sackbut participated fully in the soloistic repertoire of the 17th century, appearing regularly in sonatas and concertante works as an equal partner with cornetts or viols. There are even two virtuoso works that specify solo sackbut that could be a useful addition to a modern trombonist's repertoire: La Hieronima by G.M.Cesare (Musikverlag Max Hieber, MH6012) is rather like a solo canzona with semiquaver passage work that uses the full tessitura of the instrument. More challenging still are Rognoni's divisions (Renaissance variations) on the popular song Suzanne ung jour for "Trombone alla bastarda" (London Pro Musica, LPM REP15). The term "bastarda" does not refer to the piece's relentless cascades of semiquavers all over the instrument, but describes a technique that made variations on all the different voices of a part song, rather than just the melody or the bass. Rognoni's divisions are in a style more familiar to cornettists or violinists, and are a testimony to the high standards that some brass players achieved in the early seventeenth century. As the century progressed, however, the sackbut's use declined. By the end of the 18th century, the sackbut was on the verge of extinction. "Only the Catholics in Germany still favour this instrument, and unless help is forthcoming from Vienna, we must fear for the gradual and complete loss of this instrument." Help did come from Vienna and the sackbut did recover to reaffirm itself in a metamorphosed state as the trombone in the finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, arguably the first appearance of the trombone section in the symphony orchestra.

Buying an Instrument

Although sackbuts are rarely specified for any pieces before Giovanni Gabrieli, a chameleon-like ability to adapt to different musical styles and circumstances gives the sackbut player a vast choice of potential repertoire. The Spanish seem to have been particularly fond of the sound of shawms and sackbuts, and motets and hymns of the Spanish cathedrals make particularly fine instrumental pieces: Mapa Mundi has made available a great deal of music in the series called Spanish Church Music. The Venetian canzona is the best-known and probably best-loved repertoire of most Renaissance instrumentalists. Sackbuts are indispensable in this music, a great deal of which is available from Musica Rara (particularly the canzonas of Giovanni Gabrieli) and London Pro Musica (Venetian Instrumental Music and A Due Cori series).

Although the slide trumpet appears to have been a prominent instrument of the Renaissance, even into the 17th century, a false reputation for radically rearranging dentition has prevented it from establishing itself in the ensembles of the early music revival. Nevertheless, a few makers have reconstructed good, useable 15th century slide trumpets based on contemporary iconography. Models of this sort are available from Instrumentenbau Egger, Gert Jan van der Heide, and John Webb Brass Instruments.

Max and Heinrich Thein of Bremen, Germany, produce bespoke sackbuts and mouthpieces. They attempt to recreate every feature of the original they copy, down to the composition of the metal and the entirely collapsible construction: the reproduction they made of the exquisite Schnitzer (1579) in Verona is breathtaking, as is the price tag on such an instrument. If nothing else, it serves to remind us how valuable and esteemed a fine instrument must have been in the 16th century, affordable only to the highest in the land.

Somewhat more affordable are the sackbuts of Gerd Jan van der Heide, manufactured using authentic production techniques. All the tubes are made from folded and seamed sheets of metal (most makers settling for the modern compromise of extruded tubing), producing sackbuts of great verisimilitude. Van der Heide's instruments are correspondingly expensive, but have a soft quality of their own. He produces Renaissance sackbuts with flat or round stays and prides himself on the degree to which he can thin the bell by hand-hammering and chasing the metal. Van der Heide also makes very good mouthpieces.

Instruments from the Egger workshop are characterised by fine workmanship and a practical attitude to historical construction. Egger produces two series of sackbuts, the Renaissance and the Baroque models, the difference being chiefly a more pronounced bell-flare on the Baroque model. All Egger's instruments are made with hand-hammered bells, according to the historical method, and with the correct historical proportions (the edge of the bell approximately marking fourth position, not third as on the modern tenor trombone). Additional thinning of the bell is offered as an optional extra and the customer must specify clearly if this is required (Egger bells can vary greatly in thickness). Egger's sackbuts are fitted with a tuning slide, which, while not strictly authentic, is not unlike certain original tuning devices and is jolly useful. Round slide stays are standard, and although flat stays are offered in the catalogue, I have never seen an Egger flat-stayed sackbut (probably due to the prohibitive cost). These instruments are highly regarded by professionals in the UK and can be heard in the sackbut sections of all British Renaissance and Baroque ensembles.

The British quality sackbut market used to be dominated by the beautifully decorated instruments of Meinl und Lauber. This workshop continues to make sackbuts, now under the name of Ewald Meinl. They have become less popular with British players since cheaper alternatives have become available (most notably the instruments by Frank Tomes and by Instrumentenbau Egger), though the high price of the top-of-the-range instruments is justified by the hand-finishing of the the bell and beautiful engraving of the garland and slide stays. The production models usually have such compromise features as the bell marking third position instead of fourth, and a tuning slide, and these adaptations, while not historical, would make a modern trombonist feel more at home. Ewald Meinl offers decorated flat stays for a tenor sackbut at an additional cost of about 50% of the price of the round-stayed instrument.

John Webb Brass Instruments is the most recent workshop to turn to making sackbuts and has produced a range of instruments in co-operation with Susan Addison of His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts. The two tenor instruments are based on trombones in the Reid Collection, Edinburgh, one being a round-stayed sackbut by Schnitzer, dated 1594, the other a Baroque trombone by Huschauer, Vienna 1794. These are made with historical bells, in the correct historical proportions, with the mod cons of a water key and tuning slide. The latter instrument is proving particularly popular, for it is ideal in time and place for the Tuba mirum solo of Mozart's Requiem, and for other Viennese classics.

It needs to be pointed out that although the Renaissance tenor sackbut was in A and had flat stays, makers' catalogues only ever offer tenors in B flat, and usually with round stays. This compromise arises partly out of financial considerations, as reproducing a flat-stayed slide usually puts the price of a sackbut sky high. Frank Tomes is currently the only maker to offer an affordable 16th century flat-stayed sackbut, based on the aforementioned Neuschel/Stengel instrument. The instrument is quite historical, with a seamed, hammered and hand-finished bell, removable flat slide braces, and in its proportions, it is a close, scaled copy of the original. As such, it is the only sackbut available that is intended to be played in A and comes with a set of tuning crooks, as would an original sackbut. Do not be put off: playing in A is nothing like as difficult as one would imagine. He also offers an adaptation of this instrument to play in B flat, incorporating a tuning device in the bell section, as well as alto and bass models in E flat and F respectively.

The situation regarding authentic Renaissance alto and bass sackbuts is similar to that for tenors: while catalogues offer altos or basses in F or E flat, the common historical pitch, at least until the mid-17th century, for the alto was E or D, and for the bass, D or C. Most bass sackbut players want the instrument to be in F, like the valve side of a modern orchestral bass trombone, and so makers offer appropriately scaled down copies of museum instruments. Not surprisingly, they run into problems of balance and proportioning, and many will admit that though a bass sackbut player wants an instrument that looks like the old ones (with lots of plumbing and angels' heads by the bell), that design does not suit the pitch of F. Some solve this by producing an instrument without the characteristic coils (Böhm und Meinl, Tomes), while others (van der Heide, Ewald Meinl, Egger, Webb) give the additional option of adding tubing to the F bass to put it into E flat, which is more like the pitch of most originals. Only Ewald Meinl and van der Heide advertise basses in D; meanwhile the bass in C exists only in museums and in contemporary descriptions.

The bargain end of the sackbut market is represented chiefly by instruments under the name of Böhm und Meinl. These are in no way to be confused with the Ewald Meinl instruments discussed above. While the bore of these instruments is of the right sort of dimensions, they are in no way reproductions of original instruments. Aspects of historical construction are sidelined to produce a compromise instrument that looks convincing and plays well enough. The bass in F is particularly popular, producing a big, mellow sound with a modern mouthpiece. There was once a fashion for adapting early 20th century English and French orchestral trombones to make sackbuts by trimming back the bell by a few inches. While these trombones have the required small bore diameter and may help schools form an early brass section (they are as historical as some budget sackbuts, and are often good instruments in their own right), the mutilation of the bell cannot bring the sound nearer to that of a sackbut. If these trombones are to be used as sackbuts, then let us call a moratorium on the trade in "peashooter sackbuts", except for those already culled.

Although there is no society in the UK that specifically represents the interests of historical brass players, the Historic Brass Society (USA) welcomes British members, and issues regular newsletters and well as the annual Journal, giving the best digest of events, publications and recent discoveries.

This article was first published in the Early Music Today supplement of Classical Music, August/September 1994. Keith McGowan is a musicologist researching the history and techniques of ceremonial wind music. A former trombonist, he now specialises in early woodwind, playing regularly with the Gabrieli Consort and New London Consort, as well as directing the shawm ensemble "Ercole".