Music for Bass Trombone: A Reference Book of Works for Solo Bass Trombone with Orchestra, Band & Chamber Ensemble by Clinton F. Nieweg, and: Modern Times for Brass: Experimentelle Spieltechniken auf Blechblasinstrumenten = Experimental Playing Techniques for Brass Instruments by Malte Burba and Paul Hübner

Abstract

Reviewed by: Music for Bass Trombone: A Reference Book of Works for Solo Bass Trombone with Orchestra, Band & Chamber Ensemble by Clinton F. Nieweg, and: Modern Times for Brass: Experimentelle Spieltechniken auf Blechblasinstrumenten = Experimental Playing Techniques for Brass Instruments by Malte Burba and Paul Hübner Peter G. Fielding Music for Bass Trombone: A Reference Book of Works for Solo Bass Trombone with Orchestra, Band & Chamber Ensemble. 3rd ed. By Clinton F. Nieweg. Vancouver, BC: Cherry Classics Music, 2018. [292 p. ISBN 9790530057865 (paperback and e-book), $52.50.] Bibliography, list of publishers and sources, select indexes by accompanying ensemble. Modern Times for Brass: Experimentelle Spieltechniken auf Blechblasinstrumenten = Experimental Playing Techniques for Brass Instruments. By Malte Burba and Paul Hübner. Translation by Daniel Costello. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2019. [154 p. ISBN 9783765104459 (paperback), $72.] German and English. Illustrations, diagrams, indexes of music examples. Clinton Nieweg's Music for Bass Trombone provides a revised and enlarged update to the recent second edition of 2017 and serves as a significant expansion of the original sixty-three pages of Music for Bass Trombone with Orchestra: A Handbook (Denton, TX: Kagarice Brass Editions, 2010). This work is constructed as two autonomous compendiums of repertory information for solo bass trombone and accompanying ensemble. Part 1 surveys solo bass trombone repertory with orchestra (or string ensemble), and part 2 provides a similar listing of solos with varied band ensembles (concert band, wind ensemble, brass band, jazz ensemble, big band). Each part is augmented with lists of compositions for three or more trombones. Each part contains introductory materials, including a preface, accompanying instruments, pricing, grade level, and acknowledgements. The work contains over seven hundred entries for compositions, including information concerning composer/ arranger, instrumentation, duration, movements, first performance, range, grade level, sources, publisher, copyright date, available recordings, You-Tube links, and information about alternate editions and alternate accompanying ensembles. The extensive internal cross-referencing of solos with both orchestral and band accompaniment is valuable. The entries make frequent reference to Vern Kagarice's Annotated Guide to Trombone Solos with Band and Orchestra (Lebanon, IN: Studio Publications Recordings, 1974), Thomas G. Everett's Annotated Guide to Bass Trombone Literature (Nashville, TN: Brass Press, 1985), and Erik Thomas Shinn's "Annotated Bibliography of Works for Solo Bass Trombone and Wind Band," D.M. treatise, Florida State University, 2015 (http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-9453, accessed 3 January 2022), a resource to which Shinn provides updates through a website listing wind band solo repertory at http://www.erikshinn.com/bassboneband (accessed 3 January 2022). Music for Bass Trombone is a valuable resource for institutions possessing a sizable bass trombone studio and needing to support bass trombone performance, literature, and research projects, as well as orchestral and band ensembles and organizations that regularly schedule solo bass trombone works in their artistic seasons. Given the number of hyperlinks and URLs Nieweg provides, I recommend the e-book format for ease of access to these web-based resources. Malte Burba and Paul Hübner's Modern Times for Brass is a bilingual English-and German-language treatise with companion compact disc that surveys extended brass performance techniques and their notation to help convey the nuances of pitch and timbre that these approaches can produce. The foreword, by Romanian-born German composer and music educator Adriana Hölszky, affirms relevance of the volume to contemporary solo brass repertory, reflecting explorations at Darmstadt and the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/ Music to transcend conventional notation and sound possibilities. Over seventy music compositions spanning [End Page 569] fifty-one composers are referenced, with a large number of twenty-first-century examples. While somewhat trumpetcentric, reflecting the authors' expertise, this work provides a comprehensive chronicle of extended performance techniques spanning a range of traditional brass instruments, as well as historical (ophicleide, Wagner tuba) and less common brass-affiliated aerophones (alphorn, didgeridoo, hose tubing). The book is divided into chapters, with a detailed table of contents and subheadings in lieu of an index. Fundamental aspects of sound production are paired with acoustical explanations to present and explain a range of extended and nonstandard alternative sound production techniques. To provide an example of breadth...