John Cornell writes: 鈥楤ach wrote nothing for the trombone, not because
of any lack of inspiration but simply because it had not been invented in
his time鈥� (Forum, 21 November).
In fact, the trombone was an old man of music when J. S. Bach was still
a baby. There is plenty of Renaissance music employing the trombone, and
many graphic representations of music-making long before Bach鈥檚 time clearly
show trombones being played by both angels and mortals. Trombones were esteemed
for their ability to produce all 12 semitones of the octave, while trumpets
and horns of the time could only produce the tones of the natural harmonic
series.
Bach did, in fact, often write for trombones in his church cantatas,
one well-known example being Christ lag in Todesbanden, where the trombones
double the voices of the choir.
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I agree with Cornell鈥檚 thesis, and suspect that he was misled by the
great variety of names for what we now call the trombone. Bach called it
a posaune, since he spoke German, while the early English trombone was called
a sackbutt.
Robert Eliscu Zaandam, The Netherlands
