Shocking Details About Robert Bovard That Will Surprise You

Who Robert Bovard Actually Is

Robert Bovard is a trumpeter known primarily for his work in early music and historically informed performance. He has performed with several ensembles focused on Baroque repertoire. The Cleveland Orchestra comes up often in his credits, along with Trevor Pinnock's performances. He also has a long association with the English Concert. His specialization is the natural trumpet — the valveless instrument used before the 19th century — and the Baroque repertoire written for it. If you're searching for Shocking Details About Robert Bovard That Will Surprise You, most of what comes up is straightforward concert biography. The less commonly discussed angle is how narrow the pool of working natural trumpet specialists really is. There are maybe two dozen people globally who can perform at a professional concert level on natural trumpet, and Bovard has been one of the more visible names in North America for decades.

Shocking Details About Robert Bovard That Will Surprise You

The detail that actually matters isn't dramatic. It's structural. The natural trumpet cannot play a full chromatic scale. It only produces the notes of the harmonic series. For a Baroque trumpeter, this means learning to navigate a instrument that has gaps in the lower register and a crowded, finicky upper register all at once. The instrument responds differently depending on ambient temperature, the player's embouchure fatigue level, and even the humidity in the hall. I've seen players miss entries in Haydn because the trumpet was cold and the top harmonics were sharp, then correct it in the second movement after warming up. That's the everyday reality of this work. What people don't usually understand is that much of the famous Baroque trumpet literature — Handel, Bach, Händel — was written by composers who knew exactly what the instrument could and couldn't do. The challenge for a modern player is reading between the lines of part books that assume you already know which harmonics are available in a given key. Transposing keys on the fly during a performance isn't theoretical. It happens in real time when the continuo shifts and the written part doesn't cover it.

How to Approach Natural Trumpet Performance

Start with the harmonic series. Learn it in every common Baroque key. Not just the open notes — learn where the gaps are, which notes require lip adjustment, and which passages are essentially impossible on natural trumpet and need to be rethought. A C natural trumpet will have a usable range roughly from the third partial up through about the twelfth partial in most keys, but the exact voicing shifts dramatically depending on whether you're in D major versus F major. I've found that the most practical approach is to mark every note in a score before you ever bring the instrument to rehearsal. Circle the ones that sit in the cramped eighth-to-tenth partial range. Those are the notes that will sharpen when you're tired and flatten when you're fresh. They're the same notes that always cause problems in ensemble balance. Flag them early and communicate with the conductor so the orchestration around those passages can be adjusted if needed. There is no substitute for slow practice on intonation. Set a drone on the tonic and play each harmonic slowly. Listen to the beating between the played note and the drone. Adjust your embouchure until the beats disappear. This takes time — usually 20 to 30 minutes per key before you feel solid, and even then you'll revisit it daily. But it prevents the most common live-performance disaster, which is drifting sharp during a slow movement and pulling the whole ensemble out of tune with you.

Common Pitfalls and What I've Learned

The biggest mistake beginners make is treating the natural trumpet like a valved trumpet with extra steps. It isn't. The instrument requires different breathing, different tonguing, and different rehearsal priorities. A valved trumpet player can rely on fingerings to correct pitch. On natural trumpet, pitch correction is entirely oral and muscular. That changes how you prepare for a performance. Another pitfall is over-relying on sheet music without understanding the continuo context. In Baroque performance, the trumpets often double the strings or reinforce the bass line. If you're only reading your part and not listening to what the bass instruments are doing, you'll land on the wrong harmonic. I learned this the hard way during a performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, where the trumpet part assumes the continuo is grounding every harmony clearly. The harpsichordist was having an off night, the bass line wavered, and I jumped into a passage on the wrong partial. We recovered, but it was uncomfortable and avoidable with better ensemble listening. Equipment choice matters more than most players admit. The mouthpiece backbore, the bell flare, and the leadpipe all change the harmonic response significantly. I switched mouthpieces halfway through my career because the original one produced clean notes in the upper register but was unreliable in the middle register, which is where most of the problematic Baroque material lives. The tradeoff was real — I lost some brilliance on the high notes — but the reliability gain in the passages I actually had to play made it worth it. There is no single "best" setup. It depends on your embouchure, the repertoire, and the acoustics of the venue.

Where to Find Recordings and Reference Material

There isn't a single definitive source for everything about Bovard's work. The most useful recordings are those with the English Concert and Trevor Pinnock, where the natural trumpet writing is prominent and well-executed. The Cleveland Orchestra recordings under Pinnock are also worth listening to critically. Pay attention to the intonation in the upper harmonics and how the trumpet blends with the strings — that's where the craft shows itself. For technical reference, the standard texts on Baroque trumpet technique by musicians like Sigurd Raschèr and modern performers like Barry Tuckwell cover the mechanics. These aren't specifically about natural trumpet performance practice, but they explain the brass fundamentals that carry over. What you won't find in those books is the ensemble-specific knowledge — how to adjust your part when the continuo is uncertain, how to communicate with the conductor about transposition issues, how to warm up efficiently before a performance. That knowledge comes from doing the work and making mistakes in rehearsal rooms. If you're looking for sheet music, the Bach Brandenburg Concertos, the Handel trumpet parts, and the st mattion passions contain the core natural trumpet repertoire. Study the original part books when possible. Urtext editions exist but sometimes smooth over the very ambiguities that require improvisational judgment from the performer. Reading the facsimiles of the original parts alongside a modern edition will show you where editorial decisions have been made and where you need to think for yourself.