L-R: ex-museum director Edward H. Tarr, ex-mayor and Museum founder Günther Nufer, and new Museum director and city band director Johannes Brenke

On the 29th of October 2005 the Bad Säckingen Trumpet Museum looked back at its founding exactly twenty years before. Back in 1985 John Henry van der Meer, director of the collection of old musical instruments of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, gave the opening address. In a special exhibition the trumpet, trumpet method, and votive picture of Cesare Bendinelli were all on display. In the opening ceremony, musically framed by the natural trumpet ensemble of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, brief welcoming addresses were also given by a triumvirate composed of Museum founder Ernst W. Buser, Museum director Edward H. Tarr, and mayor Günther Nufer.

On Friday through Sunday, October 28-30, 2005, Bad Säckingen celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Museum’s founding.

On Friday evening, 28 October, there was a special ceremony in the Trompeterschloss (Trumpeter’s Castle). Two of the original triumvirate – ex-director Tarr and ex-mayor Nufer – were present; Buser died in February 2004. Mayor Martin Weissbrodt spoke about his ideas for the Museum’s future. Not only does he wish to make the Trumpeter of Säckingen the focal point of all the city’s publicity efforts, but also for the Museum to become a central part of municipal culture. Whereas the Museum up to now was in his opinion directed in a scientific direction, he wishes to open it to school classes and tourism. A system of loudspeakers or earphones should make it possible for visitors to push a button and hear the sound of the instruments in the glass cases before them. Former mayor Günther Nufer, always a dynamic orator, spoke about the Museum’s founding, beginning with a joint exhibition by the collectors Buser and Tarr in 1979, followed by a telephone call from Buser in 1984 making him an offer that he could not refuse: the entire Buser collection for a most reasonable price, DM 250,000. At that time neither the mayor nor the city council were penny-pinchers. Buser was a tough negotiating partner, however, and refused to part with his collection if it were not displayed in the Trumpeter’s Castle. The art society’s exhibit rooms were then transferred to an Art Noveau villa on the city’s periphery, and for this to happen existing plans for the villa, which were completely different, had to be changed at the last minute. Tarr recalled the various exhibitions and events that took place during his tenure as director, the most important of eight local exhibitions being the Silver Trumpets of Lisbon (1989), the Silver Trumpets of Moscow (1992), Willy Brandt and the Russian Trumpet Tradition (in Bad Säckingen and Coburg in 1993), and Instruments by Adolphe Sax (1994), the most important of the eight foreign exhibits being in Italy (Verona, Mantua, Vicenza in 1991) and – certainly the high point – in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (2001), not to mention seven Trumpet Festivals and four international competitions. He then presented the new double CD of European Cornet and Trumpet Soloists sponsored by the ITG, which went on sale for the first time that evening. Finally, he spoke of the two thefts of the most important trumpets in January 1997 and 1998 (they were returned to the Museum in 2003). Among the invited guests this evening was Monsieur Lance, the Alsatian gentleman who discovered them together with 102 other works of art submerged in a canal near Strassburg in December 2001. He was introduced and on the spot received his finder’s reward from the insurance company! The new Museum director Johannes Brenke then spoke about his own plans for the Museum’s future and as a first step introduced the new website which began to function that very day at www.trompetenmuseum.de for the German version and www.trumpetmuseum.org for the planned international version. The ceremony was musically enriched by various selections performed by a brass quintet from the town band.

On the next evening, October 29, in the Gloria Theater, Municipal Music Director Brenke conducted the town band in a concert devoted to the trumpet and to selected texts from Scheffel’s epic poem, Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (1853). Actress Hilde Butz gave a lively reading of the texts. The band contributed pieces by Wagner, Verdi, and Holst, various soloists from the band performed Midnight Blues by Franz Grothe, the third movement of the Hummel concerto, and Harry James’ Trumpet Blues, and Edward H. Tarr played the solos in a fantasy from Nessler’s opera, Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (1884), in an arrangement by the conductor of the Leipzig world premiere, Arthur Nikisch.

Finally, in a matinee in the Trumpeter’s Castle on October 30, musically enriched by the trumpet ensemble of the local music school, Adelheid Enderle delivered a fascinating lecture on “Truth and Fiction about the Trumpeter of Säckingen”, and Franz Xaver Schmerbeck presented his new luxury edition of Scheffel’s epic poem, after an original copy from 1873. A surprise highlight that director Brenke presented at the end was a new gift to the Museum, made that very day, of Louis Armstrong’s signature, framed and under glass.

We can only hope that Brenke and Weissbrodt will be successful in opening the Museum to the new media and that this will result in a still larger number of visitors. Director Brenke can be contacted via e-mail: office@trumpetmuseum.org (in English) or office@trompetenmuseum.de (in German). The Museum is open from 2 to 5 PM on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.

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Bad Säckingen Trumpet Museum