Adolf Scherbaum

Scherbaum’s early training was strongly practical. Military music schooling in Prague and later advanced study in Vienna gave him a disciplined command of articulation, breathing and orchestral projection. His first professional posts placed him directly in Central European opera and symphonic culture.

From 1930 he worked in Brno, later moving to the Deutsche Philharmonie in Prague under Joseph Keilberth. In 1941 he joined the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler, where his trumpet playing was shaped by one of the most demanding orchestral environments in Europe.

After the Second World War Scherbaum increasingly concentrated on solo repertory. The trumpet parts in Bach’s cantatas, masses and Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 became a central field. At a time when historically informed practice was still developing, these works posed formidable demands on modern brass instruments.

His achievement was not simply to play high notes but to make the clarino register viable in modern concert life. The brilliance of his attacks and stamina in the upper register helped establish a model for a generation of trumpeters and stimulated the development and wider use of smaller trumpets.

Scherbaum recorded extensively in Bach, Handel and other Baroque repertory. His playing is historically important even where later period-instrument practice would make different stylistic choices, because it documents the crucial transitional stage between nineteenth-century orchestral trumpet technique and modern specialized Baroque performance.

His legacy is therefore both technical and historical. Scherbaum helped create the conditions in which the trumpet could re-emerge as a major solo instrument after 1945, especially in repertory that had long been regarded as almost unplayable.