Ernst Buser

Dr Edward H. Tarr writes:

I first got to know Ernst W. Buser in the mid 1960s, at a concert in Basel in which Adolf Scherbaum performed. We soon became close friends, united by our love of collecting historic brass instruments. In 1979 we put on a joint trumpet exhibition in Bad Säckingen, to our knowledge the first one in the world to be devoted to that instrument. That event gave rise to the idea of displaying a permanent collection in the so-called Trumpeter's Castle in that city. To the very end, Ernst Buser remained closely associated with his collection, and we often exchanged information about our acquisitions.

He last attended a concert on February 20 in the Bad Säckingen cathedral, and I visited him at his home a last time in mid-March. During the past year or two his health had been failing, and at the end he was transferred from his home - where he was surrounded by the beloved objects he had collected all his life, art works and musical instruments - to a hospital. He died on April 17, 2004, of pneumonia.

Ernst W. Buser was born in Basel on February 19, 1925. At ten years of age he was a member of the Basel Knabenmusik (boys' wind band), and in the forties performed with various Swiss jazz bands as a trumpeter. Professionally he was advertising manager for a leading Swiss pharmaceutical periodical. For a time he collected works of art, specializing in Dutch painters working in the Italian style. Beginning in the late 1960s he assembled an important collection of historical trumpets, as well as illustrative material, methods, etc., associated with that instrument. He sold his collection in 1984 to the city of Bad Säckingen, where the Trumpet Museum opened one year later with the undersigned first as curator, later director. He belonged to that type of collector that is becoming more and more important nowadays, in the age of empty municipal treasuries. He humorously compared his role as a collector with that of a hunter in search of game: often he stalked his quarry for years before he was able to obtain a particularly coveted instrument or art work. He had the gift of allowing others to participate in his joy of collecting, and for that reason his collection did not at all smack of exclusivity or snobbery; he was happy to be able to share it with the general public. For that reason the Bad Säckingen Trumpet Museum has become a meeting place for trumpet friends from all over the world. Jean-Pierre Mathez, for whose Brass Bulletin Ernst Buser supplied numerous cartoons and other illustrations, called him "a caring and humorous person to whom brass players are deeply indebted." We will honor his memory.

Revision: Added photo 30th May 2004