Posted by Klaus on September 13, 2001 at 19:33:15:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Is this a well known signature in the US posted by Bill on September 13, 2001 at 14:15:07:
You report casts a crossponded light on the international trade situation through the first decade or two after WWII. Despite the great efforts given in the fight for freedom by the US and is people, I after all think that you were better off, than were even we Danes, who by far were not the worst hitten nation in Europe.
I could insert a digression about a 1945 situation, that not all Americans are aware of: The US carmakers did whatever possible to speed up civilian production after the war was over. So much that some of the first cars delivered in the fall of 45 had wooden bumpers. Followed by the message, that the steel bumpers would be supplied and be mounted as soon as some guns had been melted to industrial steel. Urban legend or not it reveals something about the situation.
Because our main export markets, the UK and West Germany, were poor themselves, we were short on hard currency, so imports from the US and the UK were less than encouraged by our government. Hence we went for instruments from East Germany (stenciled "Forza" and sold through I. K. Gottfried) and a bit later on from Czechoslovakia. I know of no Cervenys imported during these decades.
I have played under the 2 persons mostly credited for introducing the British Brassband style in Denmark. Most under the younger of them, Arne Christensen.
He once told, that neither he, nor Herbert Møller really deserved the credit for that introduction.
They had been preceded by a provincial scouts band, which had invested in a full band set-up of British style cornets, tenorhorns, baritones, and so on in all piston instruments. But all with the signature of "Lignatone". Because no better brands were accessible for currency reasons.
This investment proved to be a sad one. The instruments broke within a short period, so the band losts its spirit and folded.
The bands I played in took another route to access the British route, that was so attractive then:
They started out with the instruments from the older Danish military band set up: flugelhorn in Eb, 2 Bb cornets, Bb trumpet, Eb valve bone, 3 Bb valve bones, and 1 tuba (mostly in F, rarely fever than 4 valves, sometimes 6 valves, making it the best instrument in the band). No percussion in mounted bands, 2 or three man in marching bands.
I have seen rotary cornets, that I could not see differ from trumpets, as I never had them in my hands. Only when I found a very old and defunct IKG cornet a few months ago, I learned how inventive low tech can be. The receiver is cornet size, the leadpipe expands until the valve cluster. The main tubing out of the valve cluster looks cylindric down to the main tuning slide, which looks like it has two male branches. But only apparently. The female branch out of the valve cluster is double in so far that it has an inner conically expanding tubing, that de facto acts as a male branch. This more or less equals the rather recent Vincent Bach reversed leadpipe system taken back to a rotary instrument. With a rotary valve cluster placed in the middle of it.
From valved alto bone on tenorhorn parts, I by a local whim was transferred to play them on a mellophone from Holland, Schenkelaars was the brand. There were odd setups of Dutch, German, Belgian, French, and, mostly cheaper, British instruments (Markis, Westminster, Regent, Cambridge, Oxford). Rotaries and bad pistons mixed. A real bass bone was rarely seen until after 1970. No G bass bones outside the SA, which only used Brit instruments in its two top bands of this country. (I remember an early sixties 20 piece all brass military band using Mahillon exclusively in its conical brasses from the two Eb alto horns and downwards).
The benefit of the slow development towards real brass band style instrument was for many bands, that they actually survived. But it must have sounded oddly.
The band of Arne Christensen (born 1938, conductor since 1953, father of my first brass student, Peter) still exists with another of my students, Tove, as 1st bone and chairman.
Playing brass was not considered a feminine task over here, when I was young, so when Tove invaded a band rehearsal in 1973 asking out loudly why I would not accept girls, I had to ask: Who said so? There are no girls! was her reply. Not my fault, I have just taken over the band.
On her question, whether I would accept girls, I said: On one condition!
She expected something dirty, but the condition was, that I should unrestictedly be allowed to put the same demands on the girls as on the boys, and that they never should cry for timeout just because they were girls. Tove gladly accepted and brought two more friends.
Today we are still close friends, and she is the lead in brassy celebrations of sadness and gladness in my family. You might know the caretaker of the bass line.
I never intended to end here, when I started this thread on inspiration of a peek at an unmentionable site. But somehow I in days like these sensed an extra urge to recall some roots in some sort of a partially common culture.
Some people actually like, or at least accept, my acting as the story teller of the tribe. I hope you are among them!
Klaus
PS: I would not be me without letting out some acid steam:
Bill mentioned the US "country of origin law". Actually we have one nation on our continent so proud of its products, that it strives to mark even its smallest export items.
Which forced this nation to give up on exporting matches, screws, and pins. Because its printing/engraving ressources were insufficient.