Aleksandr Begantz was born in St. Petersburg and was a member Imperial Opera Orchestra for the bulk of his career. As his performing duties were winding down, he spent 10 years teaching at the St. Petersburg military high school. During that time, he wrote a series of method and study books, and today you are looking at the first-ever English translation of his two-part Method for Bb Trumpet.

Volume 1: After taking you through some of the elementary rudiments, you quickly move on to playing in the natural trumpet style of the natural harmonic series, then chromatics, intervals, melodies, scales, and more advanced articulation. Notable about this method is the frequent use of melodies, phrasing songs, duets, and lyrical pieces to reinforce what is being taught on the theoretical side. The 12 two-part canons, 12 two-part songs, and 17 Operatic Songs arranged for trumpet are worth the price of admission alone.

Volume 2: Once you graduate to Volume 2 you are immediately dropped into 22 studies in major and minor keys, Studies in Style from the music of the great masters, advanced etudes based on multiple tonging – octaves – compound meters, and finishes with extended challenging etudes based on the operas of Wagner.

There really is no other method out there that is constructed in this way. Add to that the extremely creative etude and duet writing based on the literature of the opera and the orchestra and you have yourself an absolute gem of a book. Translated into English for the first time ever by Chris Fenje, and available only at qPress.

Samples to the left, as always, and an immediate digital download is waiting for you above.