Review


Johann Sebastian Bach
School for Trombone: Two Part Inventions (BWV 772-786) Three Part Sinfonias (BWV 787-801)

Arranged by Mike Hall

Duets and Trios alto/tenor and bass alto, tenor, bass

Vancouver, BC, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2019
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Study/performance arrangements with recordings of individual parts and ensembles. Commentary on the overall project and each selection.

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 2 trombones
Secondary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 3 trombones

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has been nourishing the spirits and challenging the musicianship of performers for over 300 years. With the publication of J. S. Bach School for Trombone, Mike Hall shares with us the fruits of his existential journey through Bach’s inventions and sinfonias. He has meticulously transcribed these transcendent works for trombone—alto, tenor, and bass.

The journey begins with Hall’s 2010 multi-track recording of Ralph Sauer’s arrangement of the Art of the Fugue. Finding the process musically rewarding and technically challenging and wishing to continue his development as a player, Hall began to transcribe Bach’s Two-Part Inventions and Three-Part Sinfonias as part of a personal practice project. To place the transcriptions in a viable trombone range while keeping Bach’s original spacing, he transposed all 30 of the works down a fifth. As he conquered a phrase, he recorded it and the result is a complete group of sound files for each piece.

The transcriptions are meticulously edited. The trombone parts include specific suggestions for ornamentation born out of Hall’s expertise as a player and his thorough understanding of Baroque practices.  He makes slide position suggestions and suggestions about whether to accomplish the ornament with a lip or valve trill. He also includes other expressive suggestions revealing his own decisions regarding tempo alterations—arrows where he pushed the tempo forwards or backwards or indications for rubato. At the end of each invention Hall includes several paragraphs that recount his experiences learning the work and includes helpful practice suggestions.

The accompanying sound files are equally helpful. They include complete recordings and then separate files to accompany the rehearsal of individual parts. Hall’s exquisite alto trombone playing is especially on display here. He makes specific suggestions on how to best use the sound files while practicing. He also suggests recording one’s playing using software that shows audio waveforms to display exactly how the parts are lining up.

This publication is for advanced players only; advanced players who want to take their playing to the next level. The range requirements are challenging: the alto part rises to f2, the tenor part to d2, and the bass part descends to pedal FF. Each part requires mature musicianship and advanced technical facility. The rewards for accomplishing these challenges are immeasurable—the inspiration of playing the world’s greatest music while enhancing one’s own performance capabilities.

In his extensive title to these works, Bach writes that these compositions were “Straightforward Instruction, in which amateurs of the keyboard, and especially the eager ones, are shown a clear way not only (1) of learning to play cleanly in two voices, but also, after further progress, (2) of dealing correctly and satisfactorily with three obbligato parts. . . and above all arriving at a cantabile manner in playing, all the while acquiring a strong foretaste of composition.”  A trombone player will surely be similarly instructed by working through this challenging edition of School for the Trombone.

Reviewer: Paul Overly
Review Published June 20, 2023