ABSTRACT
The existence of the slide trumpet as the 15th-century precursor of the trombone has long been accepted by historians of brass instruments, the shawm band and basse dance. Peter Downey’s article The Renaissance slide trumpet: Fact or fiction?’ (EM, Feb 1984, p.26) questions the theoretical basis for believing there was such an instrument in the Renaissance, claiming that the notion is supported by no documentary evidence, written or iconographic. Downey has gone so far as to compare the belief in the Renaissance slide trumpet to the ‘Bach trumpet madness’ of the 1950s, when many musicologists were convinced, as a matter of faith, that playing of Baroque clarino trumpet music had depended upon a secret and now lost art.
