1825–1889 · France · Romantic
Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825–1889) was a French cornetist, conductor, composer and teacher. He secured the opening of a cornet class at the Paris Conservatoire and wrote the celebrated cornet and saxhorn method of 1864, which students still use today. For beginning trumpeters and cornetists it remains one of the standard textbooks.
Arban was born in Lyon on 28 February 1825, one of the ten children of Simon Arban. His older brother Francisque became a balloonist. The musician's full name was Joseph Jean-Baptiste Laurent Arban.
He joined the navy as a musician at a very young age and played the cornopean. In 1840 he took part in the voyage of the schooner Belle Poule, which went to the island of Saint Helena for Napoleon's ashes.
In 1841 Arban entered the Paris Conservatoire, in the natural trumpet class of François Dauverné. He completed the course with distinction in 1845.
After the conservatoire he turned to the cornet. By the standards of the day it was a very new instrument, invented only in the early 1830s. Arban returned to a naval orchestra and served there until 1852.
In those years he built up his own system of playing, paying most attention to lip and tongue technique. In 1848 he played on the cornet a difficult piece by Theobald Boehm that had been written for the flute, and astonished the conservatoire professors.
From 1852 to 1857 Arban played in various orchestras and was invited to conduct the Paris Opera orchestra. He also conducted at the Casino and at the Opera balls and wrote dance music, often collaborating with Alexandre-Charles Fessy on the writing.
In 1857 he became a saxhorn professor at the conservatoire's Military School. Earlier still, in 1846, he had worked for Adolphe Sax, giving him advice on how his saxhorns were made, and in 1848 he tested Sax's compensating cornet.
In 1864 his complete method for the cornet and saxhorns appeared. It was the first place where his many studies and the variations on the Carnival of Venice were published. Those variations are still counted among the technically hardest pieces in the trumpet repertoire.
For several years Arban pressed for a cornet class at the Paris Conservatoire. It was finally opened on 23 January 1869. Arban held the professorship of that class until 1874, and one of his pupils was Merri Franquin. In 1880 he returned to his post as professor at the conservatoire.
After returning to the conservatoire Arban took an active part in developing a new model of cornet. It was built three years later, in 1883, and became known as the Arban cornet. The idea of fitting the cornet with a specially designed mouthpiece, in place of the horn mouthpiece used before, was also his.
The instrument was built by Antoine Courtois, who also made the Arban-Courtois mouthpiece. In 1885, together with the designer Bouvet, Arban patented another version, the Arban-Bouvet cornet. His attempt in 1886 to have his cornet adopted at the conservatoire was turned down.
Until his death Arban kept working on improvements to the cornet. Not long before he died, he seems to have recorded his playing on a phonograph cylinder for the Edison company.
Arban died in Paris in April 1889.
Arban's best-known legacy is as a teacher. His complete method for the cornet and saxhorns of 1864 remains popular: almost everyone who studies the trumpet or cornet works from it at some point. The book is large and its exercises are varied, covering different levels and playing techniques. The advice at the start of the book is somewhat dated, but the exercises themselves are still widely used.
Among his compositions, the variations on the Carnival of Venice live on today. The theme is a Neapolitan folk song that Niccolò Paganini made famous; Paganini also wrote variations on it. The variations remain one of the main showpieces for solo cornetists. His Fantaisie brillante is also frequently performed and recorded.
Arban also wrote dance music: he conducted at the Casino and at the Opera balls, and is counted among the composers of festive dance music in nineteenth-century Paris. Most of his repertoire is no longer played today.
The site has his Method for the Cornet. First Studies, at the Beginner level. It is the place to begin with this author.