Steve's new solo CD ‘Virtuoso Music For Brass - the complete works for euphonium by Jules Demersseman' is released on November 1st. There is huge public interest in the CD due to the great historical significance of the music contained on it. For over 150 years Demersseman's music lay virtually unknown in the library at the Brussels National instrument museum. He was a friend and confidente of Adolphe Sax the famous instrument maker. The music scene in the early part of the 19th century in Paris was a vibrant one, and Demersseman was there as a flute virtuoso and teacher at the Paris Conservatory. He was also known as a composer, and turned his extraordinary genius to writing for brass for an instrument that Adolphe Sax had just developed, the trombone with six independent valves!! The instrument itself had a relatively short lived career, and just a few specimens survive in the Brussels museum. The 11 pieces on the disk should be of interest to low brass players everywhere, as they are great fun to listen to and even more fun to play. The composer wrote both pieces for conservatory use and in the genre that we now call theme and variations. His music predates Arban's famous work that is to be found in his Grand Method, and it is also more varied and challenging, especially in his choice of keys! He thought nothing of writing for a Bb instrument in four and five or six sharps. Being a flute player I suppose he didn't care !
The recording of these works was a real joy especially as Steve was once again able to team up with Tomoko Sawano. The instigator of the recording the Belgian, arranger and conductor Luc Vertommen was also in attendance, perfecting his published editions of the new works that accompany this CD. The CD was recorded at the RNCM in Manchester .
This CD and sheet music is available from www.justforbrass.com and shortly from the new online store at this site!!!
You can listen now and look at photos from the recording session on this YouYube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztSve5h_8d0
Jules (Auguste Edouard) Demersseman (1833-1866) was in his time a remarkable flautist and meritorious composer. This obscure composer is only known by flute and saxophone players and his name is even not mentioned in the most reference books. He was born in Hondschoote (north of France) on the 9th of January 1833. In October 1844 he was accepted, at the age of eleven, to the Royal Conservatory in Paris. He studied solfège (class of Alexandre Tariot, flute (Jean-Louis Tulou) harmony (class of Coulet) and counterpoint and fugue (Aimé Ambroise Leborne). From the exams of 1845 he gets a mention for solfège and becomes the first prize for flute at only 12 years of age. The year after this he gets his first prize for solfège. In 1852 he becomes a first mention for counterpoint and fugue and was admitted (without success) to the preparatory test for the Prix de Rome. A year later he was allowed to compete.
The reputation of Demersseman as a flute virtuoso started to develop during the concerts organised by M.Musard (Concerts Musard) in 1856 and would develop later during the concerts in the Paris Casino (organised by Jean-Baptiste Arban) and those in the ‘Champs Elysées'.
The music press was very inspired by his playing : according to Reichert ‘nous ne connaissons rien de plus délié, de plus complet et de plus chantant' (we know nothing more refined, complete or who can sing more on his instrument than Demersseman. According to Fétis ‘son talent était à la fois très fin, très brilliant et très distingué' (his talent was alternating between highly refined, extremely brilliant and very distinguished).
This honourable composer would probably been better-known if he had not have died at the early age of 33 on the 1st December 1866. He died in Paris presumably due to tuberculosis.
In his day, Demersseman was the most famous flute virtuoso in Paris. Quickly he gained the nickname ‘The Paganini of the Flute' or ‘The Sarasate of the Flute'. He was destined to become the first superstar flautist, but for only a few years. The comparison of Demersseman with Paganini was apt. Like Paganini, Demersseman was not only a dazzling performer, he was also a composer.
Demersseman as composer.
Despite his early death, Demersseman left a quite remarkable output. His composed most of his works for his own instrument: a lot of works for flute and piano and also some in the bigger musical forms (such as the three sonatas for flute and piano).
Like Paganini, his works are much more than mere showoff pieces for his fabulous technique. Demersseman was a composer of remarkable gifts. His natural ability to spin delightful and mysterious melodies was matched by a mastery of compositional techniques.
The works that Jules Demersseman wrote for the trombone with six independant valves could be easily subdivided into two main categories : the typical exam-pieces (Solo de Concert) and the themes and variations usually based on well known operatical themes.
Both the typical exam-pieces and the themes and variations breath the Parisian musical taste of that era and the influence of romantism and salon music. Romantism was the avant-garde of this period and Paris was the centre of this movement.
The aim of Sax was to get his new instruments known outside the military world. The repertoire (from the easy exam pieces till the highly brilliant fantasies) was adjusted to the taste of the Parisian public of that era and had as a main purpose to convince the audience of the Parisian salons.
Historically the most important are the works he composed for the new instruments developed by Adolphe Sax. He became a close friend of Sax and a lot of his new music was published by Sax.
His collaboration with Adolphe Sax.
Saxhorns and saxophones.
Adolphe Sax (1814-1894) was born in Dinant and got his first musical education from 1828 at the ‘Ecole Royal de Musique' (the predecessor of the Royal Conservatory) in Brussels. At an early age he already showed an interest in the instrumental making factory of his father Charles-Joseph Sax (1790-1865). In 1842 Sax moves to Paris and he first works on the fanfare band instruments, which leads to patenting the saxhorns in 1845. Adolphe Sax brought order in the chaos of the brass instruments by developing and building his family of saxhorns and saxotromba's. By building instruments with uniformity in the build, a beautiful and homogeneous-sounding family of mellow sound brass instruments was born. The saxhorns (developed for the French military bands) formed the basis for the British brass band and have their regular place in wind and fanfare bands.
In 1847 saxhorns were first used in the Paris opera and Sax becomes the responsible for hiring extra musicians for the opera and he becomes the leader of the ‘fanfare' (banda) of the Paris Opera.
The trombone with six independant valves.
Introduction : the different valve systems.
Another more significant development in brass instrument design which occupied the inventor at that time was the question of intonation when two or more valves are used in combination. It will be readily appreciated that, as the first valve brings into use additional tubing calculated to lower the pitch of the tube by two semitones, no intonation problems should arise with either the open or the valved note. Similarly, with the second and third valves when used independently, lowering the pitch by one and three semitones respectively. Difficulties arise when more than one valve is depressed at a time. With the smaller instruments the discrepancy is scarcely perceptible and is corrected instinctively by the ear and lip of the player. Instruments of the tenor, bass and contrabass registers do experience real tuning difficulties too great to be adjusted by other than mechanical means.
From about 1850, many correcting devices were made and patented. They were of varying degrees of efficiency, none being entirely satisfactory until the appearance in 1874 of David James Blaikley (1846-1936). Blaikley's ‘compensating valves' automatically brought in extra tubing when valves were used in combination. His system of compensating valves was patented in 1878. This is probably the best and most elegant system yet devised, for with no more than three pistons fingered in the normal manner theoretical tube lengths are brought into circuit automatically whenever the valves are combined.
Sax tackled the problem in his own individual way with a basically simple idea. He completely re-thought the idea of valves by developing the system of six independant working tubes with their own harmonics. This system was already developed by John Shaw in 1824 but it was Sax who perfected it.
The principles and the working of the independant valves.
The slide trombone had remained practically unchanged in principle for more than 300 years. Yet, particularly in the 19th century, many makers saw the slide as something old fashioned and inefficient which ought to be superseded by the valve. The biggest reaction against the valve trombone came, and still comes, from the players themselves. Sax was no exception in this trend of thinking. He made both slide and valve trombones, sometimes attaching a single valve to the slide instrument to extend its compass to the fundamental having all the potential inherent in the present-day tenor-bass model. In addition, he made a trombone with a slide and three valves which could be played in either method or both combined.
In his quest for good valve intonation, Sax looked to the seven slide ‘shifts' from which, using the harmonics produced from each, the slide trombone gets its full chromatic compass. The tuning of each note is always capable of being perfect since the slide may be placed with the most minute precision in the position to give this result. The inventor then, built a trombone with a fixed length of tube, calculated to give the notes of the seventh, or most extended position. With the addition of six valves which would always be used independently and never in combination, he devised a system whereby each valve would cut off a portion of the tube in lengths to correspond exactly with the seven positions of the slide. By obviating the need for the operation of more than one valve at a time, accurate tuning of each note was achieved.
The tube of the entire instrument was bent in a practical fashion to allow three horizontally placed valves to be fingered with the right hand in the usual way, with the remaining three valves arranged vertically in front of the player for which he would use the left hand. The complete instrument aroused a good deal of interest but never gained general acceptance. Players preferred the intimacy of the finely adjustable simple slide to this complex piece of mechanism. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the trombone with six pistons à tubes independents was capable of being much more facile in execution than the ponderous slide.
Historical evolution.
In 1857, with the help of Gevaert, director of Music at the Academy and a loyal supporter of Sax, the instrumentation of Sax Fanfare Band in Paris Opera was changed to include the six-valved instruments. The ultimate failure of the instrument cannot be attributed in any was to Sax's enemies. It lay in the fact that players simply did not like playing it. Victor Mahillon sums up the position : ‘The system is perfect if we consider only the theoretical side. There is not a musician who does not jump at first sight : but on the practical side it presents difficulties.'
Sax managed to retain his six-valved trombone in the Opera fanfare band for many years.
1.1. Adolphe Sax as music publisher.
From 1845 till 1878 Adolphe Sax was also active as music publisher. Sax mainly published works which were specifically written for his new instruments. In his catalogue we find music for saxophone, saxhorns and music for various instruments with valves. The composers we find in his catalogues are almost all friends and colleagues as teachers at the Paris Conservatory where they all had a solid reputation as instrumentalists : Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889), Hyacinthe Klosé (1808-1880), Jerome Savari (1819-1870), Jean-Baptiste Singelée (1812-1875), Jules Demersseman (1833-1866) and Emile Jonas (1812-1905).
With his new works, Sax did with his friends and composers the same as Franz Liszt did for piano builder Erard and Fréderic Chopin for Pleyel. Sax surrounded himself with some people who through their new music made publicity for Sax's new instruments.
Also music for instruments with six independent valves could be found in his catalogue. Jules Emile Demersseman composed almost the entire output for trombone with six independent valves.
After his bankruptcy of 14 May 1877 his catalogue was sold to J.Kugelmann. The fund Sax-Kugelmann later was bought by Margueritat. Later the fund Sax was forwarded to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
The works for trombone with six independant valves.
The works that Jules Demersseman wrote for the trombone with six independant valves could be easily subdivided into two main categories : the typical exam-pieces (Solo de Concert) and the themes and variations usually based on well known operatic themes.
Both the typical exam-pieces and the themes and variations breathe the Parisian musical taste of that era and the influence of romantism and salon music. Romantism was the avant-garde of this period and Paris was the centre of this movement.
Mostly these instrumental pieces are rather short and they focus mainly on the virtuoso possibilities or the emotional expression of a certain sentimental character in music. Usual sub-genres within salon music are the opera-paraphrase or fantasy were well-known themes from a famous opera form the basis for the composition and the musical character-pieces where a certain situation is depicted in music. The music therefore must be seductive, whimsical, spontaneous, pleasing and happy to gain its place within the Parisian bourgeoisie where music was a status symbol for their place at the social ranking. The preference in music goes to the pittoresque sometimes even to the more exotic taste. Above all this instrumental music breathes a lot of brilliant and virtuoso playing.
The ‘Solo de Concert'.
The genre sought to strengthen the link between the pedagogical and the teaching process to becoming a professional. The many ‘Solo de Concert' were mostly written for the competitions at the Paris Conservatory and are a mosaic of many technical difficulties and virtuoso effects a student should master. These works usually give a good impression of the technical possibilities of the instrument : the use of the instrument from the lowest to the highest notes, arpeggios, technical scale exercises and chromatic runs that all illustrate the technical level of the performer. There are also various passages where the sound quality and intonation are tested. Contrasts between legato and staccato playing are also tested a great deal. Different forms of articulation are a regular part of this ‘Gradus ad Parnassum', the summary of what a player should know on the technical and musical side of his instrument.
The professor at the Paris Conservatory from 1836-1871 was Guillaume Dieppo (1808-1878). It is certain that until 1870 the study of the trombone with six independant valves was obliged. It was Dieppo who introduced the works by Demersseman at the Conservatory. In the period 1863-1895 a work by Demerssemn was chosen as test piece at the Paris Conservatory more than 18 times. The repertoire used in Paris served also as an example for other Conservatories around France and abroad.
The Themes and Variations.
The Parisian public was completely captivated by opera in this period. Opera was the most important romantic genre and the most popular form of entertainment during the nineteenth century which attracted a lot of foreign composers (mainly Italian) to Paris. The main influence were the operas by Luigi Cherubini and most of all the success of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Seviglia in 1819. Rossini's influence in Paris would remain during the following decade were he would rewrite some of his earlier operas to fulfil the taste of the Parisian opera public. He also developed his grandioso style of operas as Guillaume Tell (1828) and Le Comte d'Ory (1829) which were a role model for the lighter operas in France. The influence of his Guillaume Tell was enormous as were the later works of Meyerbeer and his French epigonists Halévy and Auber. The ‘grand opera' dominated Paris from 1820 till 1850.
Also the instrumental music was influenced greatly by the opera. As did his contemporaries Sarasate and Paganini, Demersseman composed a lot of fantasies on well known opera tunes. In order to capitalise on this, instrumental composers vied with each other to write the most brilliant opera fantasies
Demersseman's themes and variations on well known opera tunes are based on :
-) Don Juan - W.A.Mozart
-) William Tell - G.Rossini
-) L'âme en peine - Flotow
Also his fantasy on ‘Le Désir' (Beethoven), his introduction and variations on ‘Le Carnaval de Venise' and his ‘Grande Fantaisie Dramatique' are themes and variations in the style of opera with virtuoso recitatives and arias.
His themes and variations are comparable with those written for cornet by Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825-1889).
Why the music of Jules Demersseman was completely lost and forgotten and has the quality to be played again more often...
In Adolphe Sax's time he and some of the leading composers of his time thought that his invention of the trombone with six independent valves would revolutionise the entire family of low brass instruments. Combining this idea with his newly invented saxhorns Sax thought that with this combination of perfect intonation (which posed a lot of problems with the low brass instruments at that time) and virtuosity the new trombone with six independent valves would soon be used in favour of the old slide trombone. However, history teaches us that the system of compensating rather than independent valves developed by Blaikley was favoured.
Demersseman died at an early age and after Sax's bankruptcy the music for those new instruments was almost completely forgotten although played very often before almost as standard repertoire for the instrument.
It seems that after all these years the euphonium is the natural heir for this music. It is non idiomatically written in romantic and virtuoso style by a flute virtuoso of his time. It is difficult, charming music designed either to entertain the Parisian public of that era or to be used by students at Paris Conservatoire to become ‘masters' of their instrument.
Surprisingly enough the same repertoire composed at the same place for an other relatively new instrument (the Arban pieces) were used as the standard repertoire for most brass instruments since then. Isn't it time to have a look at Demersseman too ?
notes by Luc Vertommen