| O.J.'s Trumpet Page | Artists and personalities |
Background and
early career.
Adolf Scherbaum (1909-2000) was born in 1909 in Eger (today the Czech
Republic) as
a
Sudeten German, into an amateur music family. 8 years old he began to
play
the trumpet. From 1923 to 1928 he studied at the Military Music School
in Prague. In 1929 he finished his studies in Vienna with Prof.
Dengler.
From1930 to 1939 he was solo trumpet at the county theatre of
Brünn
(Brno), 1939-41 at the German Philharmonic in Prague under Joseph
Keilberth,
1941-45 with the Berlin Philharmonic (under Wilhelm Furtwängler
and
after the end of the war under Sergiu Celibidache). In 1945 he was
interned
in Prague. From 1946 to 1951 he was solo trumpet at the Radio and
Professor
at The Pressburg Conservatory. In 1951 with the help of the Red Cross
he
could leave the Czechoslovakia. During his stay at the detention camp
in
Pfalz he began to work on his Low-Pressure-Method. From 1951 to 1964 he
was solo trumpet under Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt with the Hamburg Radio
Orchestra.
About Scherbaum:
The famous Maurice
André once replied during a TV-interview to
the question as to who was the best trumpet player ranking right after
himself: "I am being followed by
many, but I had a single predecessor,
Adolf Scherbaum, to whom I owe it all - it was his playing that set the
standard and shaped my style". To Josef Bayer he wrote: "Adolf Scherbaum was the
forerunner for a whole generation, particularly in my youth."
Also to other great
trumpet artist like "Bud"
Herseth
(Chicago Symphony Orchestra) he was an ideal: "... he was the first to
really go into the Baroque high trumpet playing in a big way - a very
exciting
player."
Discography:
Walter Roth has provided a discography.