François Georges Auguste Dauverné's Method for Trumpet sits at a pivotal moment in the instrument's history.* At a time when valve trumpets/cornets, slide trumpets, and keyed trumpets/bugles were all common tools of the trade, Dauverné wrote the most comprehensive method for the natural trumpet to date, and a multifaceted argument for its continued use.
An examination of this method and its postition in history sheds light on why the natural trumpet stood its ground throughout much of the 19th century, and perhaps why natural instruments are becoming increasingly common in the performance of Baroque and classical period music today.
Much gratitude is owed the Historic Brass Society for making this English translation possible, to the translators: Jeffrey Snedeker, Gaetan Chenier, Ruby Miller Orval, and Rebecca Pike for their painstaking work, to scholars such as Bryan Proksch, John Wallace, and the late Edward Tarr whose research has shed great light on Dauverné's work, and finally to Timothy Quinlan for his unrelenting quest to make important trumpet literature available and accessible to the trumpet world.
*In context of this epoch, the term "trumpet" refers to the long double or triple folded trumpets in use from the end of the 14th century throughout much of the 19th century. The first 2 and 3-valve trumpets, keyed trumpets, and both English and French slide trumpets were all of the long variety, operating on the harmonic series of the natural trumpet (not the harmonic series of a modern trumpet).