Info Bio of Ferdinand Sommer

[cleb]

Hi Everyone!



I'm a trombonist but my daughter started to play the euphonium, and we're looking for information about the inventor of the euphonium.....we've looked on google and other search engines but only 3 or 4 lines on Ferdinand Sommer.



Does anyone have infos on Ferdinand Sommer biography or is it impossible to actually fond that kind of information.



Thank you!

[fsung]

Info Bio of Ferdinand Sommer

There's a brief paragraph and a sketch of Sommer, strictly as it relates to his role as the purported inventor of the euphonium, on p. 7 of Guide to the euphonium repertoire: the euphonium source book by Lloyd E. Bone, Eric Paull, R. Winston Morris. Beyond that, he does not appear to have been a significant enough figure, either culturally or historically, to merit the interest of biographers or historians.

[bbocaner]

Info Bio of Ferdinand Sommer

The history of the euphonium is convoluted enough to warrant a James Burke TV special. It's a stretch to call Sommer the inventor of the euphonium. According to Mike O'Connor's essay that fsung referenced, you could give Sommer the credit for inspiring the term euphonium, however the instrument he invented was not particularly close in form or bore profile to what we would consider a "euphonium" today, nor was he the first to make a Bb valved bass/tenor instrument. In fact, the bass saxhorn was a decade earlier and a LOT closer to the late-19th century Besson ideas that are the core of what we consider to be a "euphonium" today than Sommer's instrument was.

[cleb]

Info Bio of Ferdinand Sommer

Thank you very much!

That's why we had a hard time finding infos..