| As far as I am aware, Russian orchestras generally use piston trumpets. I saw the St. Petersburg (formerly the Leningrad) Philharmonic in Chicago a couple of years ago, and they seemed to all be using piston B-flats.
The one exception was that the guy playing 1st cornet on the encore ("Death of Tybalt" from Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet") picked up a piccolo for the long, legato passage near the end that has the high concert 'C' in it. At any rate, this was an incredible brass section.
There's tons of recordings of Russian orchestras out there to show you what people mean when they say "Russian style". Check out the Leningrad Philharmonic under Evgeny Mravinsky. Some good pieces to get a feel for it could be: Glinka's "Russlan and Ludmilla" overture, Borodin's "Polovetsian Dances", Tchaik. symphonies, Shostakovich symphonies, Prokofiev symphonies, etc.
Lastly, Timofei Dokshitzer is the foremost example of a "Russian" way to play trumpet. |