Herbert, T. (2004) Selling brass instruments: the commercial imaging of brass instruments (1830-1930) and its cultural messages. Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography,, 29 (1-2) pp. 213-226. ISSN 1522-7464 (print) 2169-9488 (online)
Abstract
The period between 1830 and 1930 witnessed significant cultural change in respect of brass instruments, and their imaging—used both in commercial advertising and more widely—reflect their cultural context and reveal about their performance idioms. The article examines the advertisements and imagery employed by European brass instrument manufacturers and music publishers, as well as the Conn advertising campaigns of the 1920s in the USA. It also looks at the images through which brass bands promoted themselves. A significant concern is the importance of military imagery and military endorsement in both the marketing of brass instruments and the imaging of brass bands in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the way in which this became obsolete by the 1920s. The band of John Philip Sousa represented the culmination of military imagery as a serious influence on brass playing—that is, both its high point and its conclusion. The demise of such military connotations marks a significant shift in the definition of brass idioms in the twentieth century.
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CORE (COnnecting REpositories)