An overview of the brass collection in the Kenneth G. Fiske Museum

Abstract

The Kenneth G. Fiske Museum of Musical Instruments at The Claremont Colleges is one of only seven comprehensive musical instrument museums in the United States. Its collection of brasses and cup-mouthpiece instruments made of wood consists of over 400 instruments dating from the 18th through the 20th centuries. It includes cornets, trumpets, bugles, trombones, French horns, mellophones, euphoniums, tenor horns, ophicleides, keyed bugles, over-the-shoulder horns, serpents, cornettos, Russian bassoons, bass horns, tubas, instruments from Africa, Tibet, China, and other countries. The collection is especially rich in its representation of important 19th century American makers and of examples of valve designs such as Stoelzel, Berlin Pumpen, Vienna, Allen, and various designs of the Perinet valve. Valves were initially introduced by German makers in 1818, and were gradually accepted by players during the 1830s and 1840s. The Perinet valve of 1838 emerged as the standard design only by the 1870s and 1880s. With the use of slides of several instruments the presentation will illustrate four broad aspects of the collection: (1) the development of the low brasses; (2) types of valves; (3) brasses in Asia and other countries; and (4) unusual designs.