Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 249
Scan 249
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
13 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 223. See the scan on archive.org.
1F, E-flat, D, C, and B-flat." 3 The third invention was that of the ophicleide in 1817 by Halary, a professor of music and an instrument maker at Paris. It was an enlarged key bugle, the first complete instrument with ten to twelve keys, made as an improvement on the bass horn and serpent and predecessor of the tuba. James K. Kendall was a well known player of this instrument. It is interesting to note that the first maker in London of this instrument was George Astor, elder brother of John Jacob Astor. The double bass or monster ophicleide in F and E-flat, a fifth below the bass ophicleide is another kind of ophicleide. Both an ophicleide alto in F and a second alto in E-flat were used in the Boston Brass Band. Beside these changes pistons were introduced into trombones in 1818. 4
3For James A. Bazin's cornet with a rotary disk made in 1824 and Nathan Adams' invention of the rotary valve before 1825, applied in his "Permutation Trumpet," see page 302. Apparently both devices made possible the playing of a diatonic scale.
5By the decade 1860 to 1870 there were other fine bands, namely—Germania, Boston Brigade, [address hidden], Hall's Boston Brass and Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore's famous band. Mr. Gilmore's band traveled all over the country giving concerts, and he conducted festivals for years. The climax of his career was the Great National Peace Jubilee held in Boston in 1869, to which President Grant and his cabinet, governors, army and navy officers and citizens from all over the United States came to hear the chorus of 10,000 voices and an orchestra of 1,000 players. A later jubilee held in 1872 was not so successful because a chorus of 20,000 voices and an orchestra of 2,000 were too unwieldy. A little later there were a number of other bands, Boston Cornet, Suffolk, L'Africain's, Carter's, Edmands,' Metropolitan, American, Boston Cadet, and Boardman's. 6
7In such a brass band centre the manufacture of brass instruments naturally developed. Several of these leaders were good players and apparently went into the business of making instruments in order to have the kind of instruments they desired to use in their bands. Brass instrument making in Boston dates back at least to
93 Historical Musical Exhibition Under the Auspices of Chickering & Sons, Horticultural Hall, Boston, January 11th to 26th 1902, Catalogue of, p. 34.
104 Ibid p. 36.
115 Formed in 1821 as a reed band and converted later into a brass band.
126 Information supplied by Thomas M. Carter, leader of Carter's Band.
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