PROFILE: JÜRGEN KRAUSS

TROMBONIST, SACKBUT PLAYER, BAKER

SERIES EDITOR ALASTAIR WARREN

My earliest musical memories were certainly my grandpa (euphonium) and my father (trombone) going off to rehearse with the town band every Friday night. There was a certain aura about it – them getting shaved, putting on nice clothes, and getting the instruments down from the top of the cupboard. And of course, the whole family would attend any occasions where the band played, carnival, religious processions, and the like.

When I entered primary school, we were offered recorder lessons, and together with a girl, I was ahead of the class very quickly, but I don’t remember the recorder group lasting for more than two terms or so. Anyway, it taught me to read music.

When I was about 12, I picked up my father’s trombone just out of curiosity and managed to get a good noise out of it, and that started it off. I quickly got an instrument, the German style unbranded trombone my father had learned on, and after doodling around under my father’s supervision I got integrated into the youth band and later the town band. I had some lessons from the conductor, but from my current understanding there was very little in terms of direction there. Nevertheless, I enjoyed playing.

Right from the beginning I joined a brass club at school, and later a Dixie band and Big Band, where I learned a lot by just playing along with a very talented euphoniumist.

When I got into Oberstufe, which is somewhat equivalent to sixth form, our music teacher, who had studied at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, organised an Early Music group, a very lively experience of sometimes rather experimental ensembles and a bit of teenage romance. We had recorders, an oboe, a violin, a dulcian, a cello, and me on my modern trombone.

At that time, I also began taking lessons with Hans Skarba, principal of Freiburg Philharmonic, and he put me into a quartet, participating in the German contest “Jugend Musiziert”, playing the Serocki Suite and Speer Sonata. I also bought lots of sheet music I couldn’t quite play … I started to think about a musical career, but frustrations with my self-taught playing, and not being able to play piano, lead to a pause in musical activities during my national service and the first half of my Physics studies. But music didn’t disappear completely from my life – I began to obsessively listen to classical music of all sorts, and a few favourites started to crystallize. Thinking about what kind of thing I would like to play or could play I chose Early Music, found a course to make Renaissance woodwind instruments and got hooked, literally, playing crumhorns and recorders.

I went to the Musikwoch in Staufen, and there, after a long day of Ockeghem on recorder, in a social setting I asked a lady if I could try out her sackbut, and managed my way through Ortiz’ Recercada Primera, which I had performed years earlier at a school concert. After that I got asked a lot ‘What are you doing here playing the recorder !?’

Now, this lady was about to buy a new sackbut and lent me her old one. She was active in the Basel Posaunenchor and well connected to the Schola

PHOTO CREDIT: JÜRGEN KRAUSS

Cantorum and the amateur scene, so we started to meet regularly, having group lessons with Heinrich Huber at the Schola, and playing from the tower of Basel Münster! Many private and public workshops followed, and eventually I considered bringing my sackbut playing up to professional level. After courses with Bruce Dickey and Charles Toet, the cornett player Peter Birner recommended I should talk to Ulrich Eichenberger, who then became my trombone mentor for the next four years. Peter also introduced me to the Feldenkrais Method.

I started to have fairly regular gigs with Ulrich Eichenberger, Gruppe für Alte Musik München/Martin Zöbeley, Musiche Varie/Martin Lubenov, and others (a highlight being Monteverdi’s Vespers in Iceland).

Later I started the Feldenkrais training in Heidelberg, from which I graduated in 2002.

During that time of trying to find my musical path I graduated in Physics, moved to Frankfurt and worked as a kitchen fitter. In Frankfurt I became part of a very nerdy amateur Early Music scene. I regularly played trombone or sackbut in church and was part of the Frankfurter Renaissance Ensemble. Matthias Schneider, the leader, turned his house into a library of facsimiles of music up to about 1650, and every Monday we met around his dining table to play 8-part Renaissance music from copies of original prints, on brass and double reeds. Mostly I played sackbut, on occasion I also played shawms. Another circle I had at that time was smaller – a physicist living in Bad Homburg would invite two or three players, and we then focussed on maybe two pieces a night, starting at 7pm, and at times finishing at 3am. Using 8-foot recorders or a mix of recorders, viols and sackbut we studied mainly music from sources dated before 1500, using facsimiles. I was fluent in reading ligatures back then …

In the late 1990s the sackbut opportunities dried up, and I had the opportunity to get into IT and computer programming. Taking another break from music I still pursued my Feldenkrais training though, and this is what brought me to the UK. I took part in the Lewes Feldenkrais Training as a guest and fell in love with my wife Sophia. A year later I moved to the UK.

Sophia is very creative in many ways, and we explored some possibilities together, playing duets on recorder and violin, and she even got me to play the Japanese Noh flute. Trombonists, this is a brilliant tool for breath control!

Sophia got me back into trombone playing by putting me in touch with The Brighton & Hove Concert Orchestra, and I started to discover the wealth of YouTube resources, especially the two little videos by Sam Burtis about overtones got me going. I had always wondered if there was a connection between overtone

DIXIE: L–R: EDWIN WEISS, JÜRGEN KRAUSS, ANDREAS ALTHAUS, WINFRIED RUH, JOCHEN SEGGELKE.

singing and trombone playing, and his approach made sense to me, with immediate results.

Meanwhile we had our son Benjamin. On a visit to my parents, he was not yet 2 at the time, he picked up my wooden Swedish trumpet and made some astonishingly good noises! I had a Finke alto trombone in F, which I then left out and Benjamin could play on it whenever he wanted.

Eventually, when he was 8, I got him a mini pBone to get started.

At a fair in Brighton I came across the Sussex Jazz Orchestra and joined them soon after. A wonderful bunch of people, and a place where you can’t hide. The wonderful trombonist Mark Bassey, our MD, makes sure everyone gets a solo spot. It is one of the great joys in my life to play duets (Blazhevich, Genzmer …) with Benjamin and to play in the Sussex Jazz Orchestra together.

Although I am not currently practising the Feldenkrais method it runs through so many things I do. One of Moshe Feldenkrais’ descriptions of the method is to get a flexible mind by getting a flexible body. To me it’s more a way of thinking than a prescribed set of movements. To achieve this flexibility, you can offer alternatives to the way you do things in everyday life. If you are right-handed, use your left hand to brush your teeth. Read your book upside down. Make your mind curious by questioning habits and offer alternatives. I experienced these ideas with my infinitely resourceful teacher Ulrich Eichenberger (who is not a Feldenkrais practitioner), and I am using them when working with my son on his trombone pieces, and, of course, when I practise the trombone.

It is so easy for habits to sneak in when you play an instrument and practise for hours every day. And many habits can create problems, not only affecting musicality, but also creating painful conditions through the repetitive and often asymmetrical use of your body. The Feldenkrais Method can help a lot in tracking down and transforming those habits. I know very well that other approaches yield similar results, and that the non-prescriptiveness of Feldenkrais is not for everybody.

There is a lot on the internet about my baking career and my participation in the Great British Bake Off, so I’ll keep this short. I started seriously making bread when I craved German bread, back around 2010. I found some good books, and understanding formula and fermentation also tickled my scientific mind. Many people urged me to apply for Series 3, which I did. But I wasn’t convinced I should and was worried

SACKBUT: L–R: MICHAEL MULLEN, LYN HARRADINE, JÜRGEN KRAUSS. PHOTO CREDIT WAYNE PLUMMER

about all that publicity. I submitted my application 10 seconds before the closing date and was relieved not to get a call. Colleagues, friends, and my wife kept nagging me to apply again, and so I did in November 2020, with a very different mindset. Baking in a ‘Bubble’ without disturbance, felt appealing, and I felt I would have something to give.

Many people who watched the show told me that they saw me there just as I am in real life. My approach to things, be it music, swimming, computer programming, baking and so on, is hugely influenced by the Feldenkrais Method, the teaching I received from Ulrich Eichenberger, and of course from my wife, who always manages to pull me back down to earth when I get too lofty. A reflected consistency is the basis on which my creativity can grow.

As I am doing IT work for a London job agency my time is limited, and it is a bit of a juggle to fit in baking, trombone, exercise, and family life, plus all the new things popping up after Bake Off.

The first lockdown was great in terms of expanding my musical network – last summer we had weekly sessions in our garden with new friends, playing through a huge number of Italian canzoni (Banchieri, Triolo, Frescobaldi, G. Gabrieli) on violin, cornet, sackbuts and curtal. The Sussex Jazz Orchestra has resumed its activities and I look very much forward to our next gig in April. Occasionally I also join the band Pam et des femmes in Lewes, my wife is a regular member there.

New projects have come up thanks to Bake Off: a collaboration with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and a recording of 6-part music with the Bone-Afide quartet, in which my son will also participate. I am super-excited about these opportunities.

Finally, my equipment: Vincent Bach 36G from the 1980s with Denis Wick 5BS, Thomann (Chinese) Alto with Denis Wick 10CS, Egger Hainlein MDC Tenor and Egger Starck Alto Standard, both with Egger mouthpieces.

I’ve got a few other things, two 1920s peashooters among them (Boosey, Brown & son) with original mouthpieces. I really like the sound of the peashooters but need to do something about the sticky slides!

Follow Jürgen on social media via Twitter @juergenthebread, Instagram @juergenthebread and Facebook Juergen Thebread. ◆