Louise Bertin (1805-1877) was a contemporary of Hector Berlioz (1803–1869). When our librarian sent us the trumpet parts for Bertin’s Fausto, which had been specially prepared by the editor Marie Humbert from Palazzetto Bru Zane, we could identify two distinct writing styles: the work begins and ends with chromatic trumpet parts, and the central portion is clearly natural trumpet-style writing [for trumpets in F, E, E-flat, D, C, B-flat, and A]. 

So, I needed natural trumpets and nearly every crook. In fact, I brought three natural trumpets: a ‘long’ one (serving B-flat and A), a ‘normal’ one (serving D and C), and a ‘short’ one (serving F, E, and E-flat). 

In trying to decipher which instruments to use for the chromatic parts, I spoke to the editor who was incredibly helpful. She explained that Bertin used the term ‘trombe’ throughout, so Will Russell (2nd trumpet) and I ruled out the idea of using a cornet a pistons crooked in G (although Berlioz used cornets in A in his Symphonie Fantastique of 1830, so it might still be plausible). Instead, Will and I opted to use Romantic valved F trumpets, making some simple transpositions.

The first professor of the trumpet at the Paris Conservatoire, François Auguste Dauverné explained, in 1857, that

The valve Trumpet … was not known in France until about the end of 1826, and it is in the early days of October of that same year that the celebrated Spontini, then General Music Director to H. M. the King of Prussia, sent M[r]. Buhl, Chief of Music for the Gardes du corps du Roi [King’s Life Guards], as well as to myself, who was also a member of that band, a Trumpet of this new system, but which left to be desired with regard to the sonority and to the precision of the valves’ play. It was at this point that the whole of French manufacturing put itself into a flutter at the arrival of this new and ingenious invention, and that it succeeded in eliminating the original inconveniences. Having been the first, so to speak, to use this new Trumpet, I was able to appreciate its advantages, even though I recognized the pressing need to bring modifications to its primitive manufacture. Having reached the desired goal, I got the opportunity to have this instrument heard to great advantage, which instrument, in 1827, was first used in the orchestra of the Académie royale de musique, in the opera Macbeth, composed by M[r]. Cheland, which got but few showings because of the arrival and splendor of Rossini’s Moses, one of the masterpieces of this great master. It was but two years later, in 1829, in the William Tell opera, that the valve trumpet reappeared once again, to figure from then on in many other works, notably in Robert le Diable, La Juve, Les Huguenots, etc.

The arrival of this new instrument gave birth, around 1832, to the Cornet à pistons, a kind of small Trumpet which our French instrument makers thought up and which they started manufacturing successfully; at its beginnings, it was enthusiastically adopted by the Parisian public, and it was accepted in Germany but long after its invention.

Dauverné, François Georges Auguste, ‘Méthode pour la Trompette’, Paris (1857). Translated by Ruby Miller Orval, Rebecca Pike and Jeffrey Snedeker Gaetan Chenier, ‘Method for Trumpet’, Historic Brass Society Journal (1991), pp. 208–9.

As a failsafe, Will and I also brought our B-flat trumpets (from slightly later than this period) which have some fake tubing to disguise them so that they look like the Romantic F trumpets! (See video below). Therefore, we had five trumpets each!