Biography
Born to Johann Caspar Altenburg, Johann Ernst Altenburg was likely a descendant of Michael Altenburg. Although recognized for his command of the trumpet—his father having earned particular renown in the upper register—along with accomplishments in composition and at the organ, his chief legacy resides in the treatise “Heroic and Musical Trumpeters’ and Kettledrummers’ Art.” Through this text the previously unrecorded methods and historical record of the vanishing practice of natural trumpet playing reached a broader audience. Long passed along solely by direct instruction from master to pupil, the tradition was now in decline, leading Altenburg to disclose guarded techniques of tonguing, lipping, and breathing required both for rendering “military signals” in the field and for the articulation styles employed during the Renaissance and Baroque Eras.