Brass musical instruments in history and the relationship of research to performance
Submitting Institution
Open UniversityUnit of Assessment
Music, Drama, Dance and Performing ArtsSummary Impact Type
CulturalResearch Subject Area(s)
Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Performing Arts and Creative Writing
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies
Summary of the impact
Research on the history, repertoires and performance cultures of brass
instruments has reconfigured the international music community's
understanding of how brass instruments have been played in the past and
has unveiled new repertoires. The results are new understandings of
performance techniques and instrumentation that continue to influence
creative practice among leading professional performers. The findings from
the research are recognised as major points of reference for professional
and amateur performers, and have also contributed to work in the heritage
industry and to that of print and broadcast media professionals. The
research has also been translated for wider consumption in pivotal
publications such as Grove Music Online, which features new
entries on bands and individual brass instruments. The research also
inspired Music in Words, the seminal textbook for teachers and
students of music performance outside the higher education sector.
Underpinning research
Research on brass instruments carried out by Professor Herbert is
regarded as pivotal. It is built on scholarly investigation and on his
experience of performance with most major UK orchestras, opera companies,
chamber ensembles and period instrument groups. The research is unique
because it has been directed at key questions concerning the way brass
instruments have been understood and used over a wide chronological
period. Through a series of projects since 2003 the research has sought to
enhance the music community's understanding of repertoires that include
brass instruments even where the notated music does not indicate their
use, how performance techniques and conventions have changed, and how
historic brass instruments designs have impacted on the sound balance of
ensembles more generally.
The research has ranged from sixteenth-century court music to Victorian
amateur brass bands, early New Orleans jazz and the avant-garde. A
sustained theme of the work has been an exploration of the way the musical
practices of the lower social orders have informed more elite musical
repertoires and performance styles. The work has a particular
distinctiveness because the point of departure has usually been a minute
examination of the experiences of performers rather than the more usual
starting point of examining written repertoires. In The British Brass
Band: A Musical and Social History [3.3] Herbert explained for the
first time how such bands originated, how and what they played, and how
the new virtuosity of amateurs influenced the writing of modernist
composers.
In other publications, but especially in his book The Trombone
[3.4], Herbert (Professor in Music) explained the origin of the trombone
in the fifteenth century, how and in what circumstances it was used by
trombone players in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (a period when
players of the instrument were ubiquitous but it was almost invisible in
musical sources), and what the repertoire was. The book then explained the
role of the valve trombone in orchestral music and jazz in the nineteenth
and early twentieth century, giving new insights into the circumstances in
which these instruments should be properly deployed. Ideas about the
accurate deployment of instruments and performance techniques are the
source of the most significant impact of the research.
Perhaps the most vivid example is the Cyfarthfa project [3.1], in which
Professor Herbert discovered, reconstructed and recorded the repertoire of
a mid-nineteenth century brass band, using period instruments and the
handwritten scores from which the original performers played. The project
was the subject of a much-repeated BBC TV documentary (Mr Crawshay's
Private Band).
More recently, under the auspices of the Arts and Humanities Research
Council (AHRC), Herbert has applied similar research questions to military
music in the long nineteenth century (c.1770-1911), revealing key
relationships between military music and musical practices more generally
in Britain and the Empire.
Each of these projects has implicitly and explicitly exemplified links
between scholarly research and musical performance in the modern world. It
was precisely because of this that the world's largest music performance
examination organisation (the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of
Music (ABRSM)) commissioned Herbert to write Music in Words: A Guide
to Researching and Writing About Music [3.6], which is now widely
used by performing musicians and teachers throughout the world.
References to the research
1. The Origin of the Species: The Cyfarthfa Repertory on Period
Instruments, The Wallace Collection, Nimbus Records, NI 5470 (1996),
supplemented by a BBC film (Mr Crawshay's Private Band) and several print
publications.
2. Herbert, T. and Wallace, J. (eds) (1997) The Cambridge Companion
to Brass Instruments, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (4200
copies sold to March 2013; also translated into Japanese).
3. Herbert, T. (ed.) (2000) The British Brass Band: A Musical and
Social History, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
4. Herbert, T. (2006) The Trombone, Yale University Press (2527
copies sold to March 2013).
5. Herbert, T. and Barlow, H. (2013) The Military and Music in
Britain in the Long Nineteenth Century, Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
Grants
1998: £4,280 awarded by the British Academy to Professor Herbert for a
project entitled `Brass instruments and performance: social context and
performance practice between 1820 and 1930'
2002-04: £53,635 awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board to
Professor Herbert for a project entitled `A musical and cultural history
of the trombone' (Graded `Outstanding')
2005-08: £77,514 awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to
Professor Herbert for a project entitled `Cultures of performance among
British brass players 1750-1965' (Graded `Outstanding')
2008: £2,450 awarded by the British Academy to Professor Herbert for a
project entitled `The place of brass instruments in the development of
jazz idiom' (Satisfactory — the only positive grade used by the British
Academy)
2009-12: £256,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to
Professor Herbert for a project entitled `Military sponsorship of music in
Britain in the nineteenth century and its relationship with the musical
mainstream' (Grading not completed at the time of submission)
Details of the impact
Professor Herbert's research has decisively influenced professional and
amateur musicians, the heritage industry, and print and broadcast media
around the world. It has provided a more sophisticated and nuanced
understanding of the conventions of historical performance of brass
instruments than previously existed, and that knowledge continues to
inspire new forms of artistic expression in modern performance.
Herbert's long and distinguished career as a performer at the highest
level of the music profession has provided him with an intimacy with the
practical problems that performers face in interpreting musical texts and
a familiarity with many of the world's leading players and ensembles. A
great deal of the advice he provides is to individual performers: for
example, he has advised members of the Welsh National Opera, the Royal
Opera House and Glyndebourne Opera on the instruments that should be used
for the performance of nineteenth-century Italian opera — particularly the
type of instruments that should be used: valve or slide instruments; wide
or narrow bore instruments and the type of instrument that should be
properly deployed for the bass parts labelled `cimbasso'. He has also
advised museums, including the National Museum of Wales, on the provenance
and description of instruments. His advice is seen as important because it
is known to be based on a forensic examination of a wide range of primary
sources [5.10].
The depth of influence on the international music community of Professor
Herbert's portfolio of research and its relevance to musical practice is
perhaps best demonstrated in the continued success of Music in Words:
A Guide to Researching and Writing About Music. This was
commissioned by the ABRSM (the world's largest music performance examining
body) and first published in 2001. It is the default text for teachers of
music performance and performance students, and is aimed at creating a
strong synergy between research method and musical practice.
Published in two editions (2001 and 2012) with associated websites, Music
in Words has been reprinted six times with 14,429 copies sold in
Europe and Commonwealth countries. In 2010 it was adapted to American
style and published in the USA by Oxford University Press (US sales data
not available). Music in Words is praised by industry experts as
`the standard reference work for all serious writers about music' (The
Trombonist), `an accessible and thorough source of guidance' (Ensemble),
and `an invaluable reference tool' (The Strad) [5.1, 5.2).
Herbert's research has also contributed significantly to the most widely
consulted reference sources in the world, which are commonly used as the
initial reference points not just for academics but for the creative
industries globally. These include Oxford Bibliographies Online
(2011), The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales (2008), the New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (continuously updated since
2000), American Grove and the New Grove Dictionary of Musical
Instruments (both 2012). Research findings have directly informed
these publications, replacing longer established major entries with
entirely new explanations of many of the fundamental search terms relating
to brass instruments. From 2010 to 2013, annual hits on these brass
instrument entries in Grove Music Online exceed 3000.
Beyond the international music community, TV and radio programmes,
commercial DVDs and heritage exhibitions have introduced Herbert's
research to a wider public audience. These include major roles in radio
series such as the American Public Radio Network Programme British
Brass Bands: A Working class Tradition (2013) and the documentary
DVD History of Brass Bands: The Golden Period (2011).
Permanent exhibitions for which Herbert has provided the explanatory
texts and expert advice include the popular music culture exhibit at the
National Waterfront Museum of Wales and the permanent exhibition at the
Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, which typically attracts 70k-75k visitors each
year (72,686 in 2012). This exhibit tells the story of the Cyfarthfa Band
through a sequence of explanatory captions relating to instruments, music
manuscripts, pictures and ephemera. It has in turn been the focus for
several TV and radio programmes, including The People's Museum
(BBC2, 2008).
Sources to corroborate the impact
- Sales figures and review summaries for Music in Words provided
by ABRSM Publishing on 5 April 2013.
- Visitor figures for Grove Music Online provided by Oxford
University Press (Grove Online) on 15 April 2013.
- Testimonial from the President of the Historic Brass Society, 7 April
2013.
- Sales figures for The Trombone, Yale University Press, 5 April
2013.
- Visitor figures from Merthyr Tydfil Museum Service, 3 April 2013.
- Verification of value to broadcast programme, Producer (American
Public Radio), 8 April 2013.
- Review of The Trombone, http://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9780300100952
- Review of The British Brass Band, The Times Literary
Supplement
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198166986.do
-
International Trombone Association journal.
- Portfolio of emails from professional players and teachers.