Joseph Jean Baptiste Laurent Arban
was a French, born in Lyon February 28, 1825 and died in Paris on April 8, 1889.
He is the author of Great Complete Method for cornet and saxhorn (1864) which is still today the reference method for learning the trumpet and cornet. Jean-Baptiste Arban was probably the most brilliant French cornet player of his time.
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Very young, he enlisted in the Navy as a musician, playing cornopean. Thus, he participates in the 1840 voyage of the schooner "Belle Poule" which will look at St. Helena Napoleon's ashes. In 1841, he entered the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris where he studied trumpet (natural) with François Georges Auguste Dauverné in 1845 and obtained a first prize.
After leaving the conservatory, the cornet Arban pass (invented in 1831) and resumed service in the navy until 1852. It was during these years that he developed his playing technique (especially lick), reaching a level of virtuosity which amazes the leaders of the conservatory when running in 1848 a piece for flute Theobald Boehm.
From 1852 to 1857 he served on several orchestras and lounge is even invited to conduct the orchestra of the Paris Opera. In 1857 he was appointed professor of saxhorn at the military school, and publishes his Great Complete Method for cornet and saxhorn in 1864, which included, among other studies of virtuosity, the famous "Variations on Carnival of Venice". January 23, 1869, he finally inaugurate a class cornet at the Paris Conservatory, after an unsuccessful attempt seven years earlier.
In 1874 he resigned from the academy to conduct concerts in St. Petersburg at the request of Tsar Alexander II, where he won a great success. He resumed his post at the Paris Conservatory in 1880, and is innovative in recommending the use of a mouth shallower than the traditional one derived from the mouth of horn.
The contributions of Jean Baptiste Arban for teaching and playing technique of the horn are well known but less is known about its contribution to the design and manufacture of the instrument. In 1846, he worked for Adolphe Sax, he advises on the production of its euphoniums, and tests the "cone compensator" of Adolphe Sax in 1848.
Then professor of cornet at the Paris Conservatory, in 1880 Arban develops a new model cornet and patented in 1883 as "cornet Arban". A year later, he waives his rights to the patent and Antoine Courtois built "cornet Arban" and a mouth "Arban-Courtois". In 1886, Arban trying to impose the "cornet Arban" at the conservatory, but his request is rejected.
Between 1883 and 1888, Arban experimented improvements to the construction of the horn, and after 1885, works with Bouvet, design engineer of instruments.
They patented a "cornet Arban-Bouvet" in 1885 and the device is manufactured by Millereau, which manufactures brass from 1861 until its acquisition by Henri Selmer factory in 1931, while François Sudre built in 1884 in Marseille a horn said compensation "Arban compensator". Arban died in Paris in April 1889.
