Horns and Trumpets of the World

Montagu focuses here on horns' and trumpets' histories, construction and design, and performance issues. Drawing from his extensive experience as a performer and as a curator of Oxford's Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, he incorporates the works of numerous other performers, historians, and organologists of the past hundred years or so. This narrative functions at once as a catalog of horns and trumpets in Montagu's collection, a documentary on the purposes and functions of these instruments, and a personal account of the author's experiences in collecting and playing instruments. Montagu defines the differences and similarities between trumpets and horns in their diverse guises throughout the world. Arranging this volume historically and by materials used for constructing the instruments, Montagu covers the instruments' broad spectrum in a very personal, practical, and colloquial style. Multiple black-and-white photographs and illustrations support descriptions of the instruments and other items from the author's collection. . . .Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *
Many books cover the instruments of the band and orchestra, but few cover the globe as Montagu does. He explains the overtone or harmonic series briefly, with an example in musical notation. Before the prelude is an important chapter on the 'Protocol of Measurements' (pp. xix-xx), which includes abbreviations, symbols, measurements (in millimeters, with the pitch standards employed). The author explains the structure and construction of brass instruments, and their derivation from various source materials, such as bark, cane, gourd, and metals—particularly brass. Usages of each instrument vary, both in musical and ritualistic terms. He presents over 150 detailed illustrations. Many of these are from Montagu’s personal collection, developed over a six-decade time span. He entered these into a ledger catalog, using Roman numerals for the volume, and Arabic numerals for the page. . . . . Montagu presents a very useful narrative that describes visually and in clear text, trumpets, horns, trombones, and world music instruments (e.g., didgeridoo, shell trumpets, side blown horns). * American Reference Books Annual *
Fellow Jeremy Montagu, former curator of the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments and President of the Galpin Society, has written several books already on the histories, origins and development of musical instruments, but this book was written with the particular affection and insight that comes from the fact that Jeremy is a brass player himself, having studied French horn at London’s Guildhall School of Music. . . .The text is also packed with fascinating insights into the ways that composers have used these instruments to lend vibrant colour to their work. * SALON Online Newsletter *
On the surface, Horns and Trumpets of the World is a detailed catalogue of Montagu's own extensive and important collection of musical instruments. It is that, but it is also much more. While Western musical instruments are represented, non-Western instruments are prominent in this study and it is that focus that makes this book so valuable. . . .Montagu traces the history of many of the instruments and instrument types and often includes fascinating descriptions of how these instruments are woven into the social and cultural fabric of the people who use them . . .In addition to the valuable information in this book, an added bonus is the author's charming conversational tone, manifested in the form of wonderful anecdotes about the acquisition of particular instruments in his collection. He offers insight into the thrill of amassing a large and important instrument collection as well as a detailed social and organological study of the instruments. * Historic Brass Society Journal *
When such an expert invites one to take what is essentially a guided tour around his own extensive personal collection of horns and trumpets, one is not surprised to read an erudite but surprisingly readable account of a huge range of instruments (the title says it all!), including many that the average musician would never have heard of…. Throughout the book, there’s a wealth of technical detail; it goes without saying that protocols of scientific measurements and musical pitches appear at the outset. Physical descriptions and performance techniques receive equal attention throughout the text. The book is generously illustrated, again with a detailed list in the prefatory pages, and is equipped with all the usual bibliographic and other appendices: indices of instruments, of makers, of people and places and a general index to conclude the work…. [T]here is much to interest the more general music scholar and the opening chapters will be of considerable interest to ethnomusicologists, while detailed historical accounts of brass instrument manufacturers and retailers could be relevant to a very wide range of scholars concerned with the music trade or particular groups of performers. * s *
Informed by a lifetime's experience playing and analyzing musical instruments, Jeremy Montagu's richly illustrated guide to horns and trumpets provides a panoramic survey of types from all over the world, drawn mostly from his own encyclopedic collection. Dozens of photographs help readers identify exotic examples and view familiar "brasses" afresh, while Montagu's insights to their construction and usage, couched in non-technical language, provide essential context for the instruments' physical descriptions, including measurements. Of special interest are personal anecdotes about how Montagu acquired and researched his holdings. An extensive bibliography and detailed indexes add to the book's usefulness. Horns and Trumpets of the World will be immediately valuable to collectors, curators, musicians and music-lovers, and everyone fascinated by this ancient, still evolving family of instruments. -- Laurence Libin, Editor in Chief, Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments