The Sea-Shells Waltz was written in 1880 as part of a musical challenge Innes posed to the great French cornetist, Jules Levy. They were both in New York performing as soloists with the legendary Gilmore band for some summer concerts. Levy would play a solo and Innes would follow with an even more elaborate one. One day Levy brought in a new solo in which he injected his own extemporaneous cadenza made up of everything he could do on the cornet. When his turn came to play, Innes also had something up his sleeve. He had written a brand new solo for the trombone, entitled The Sea-Shells Waltz with a minute and one-half cadenza.

This legendary musical duel brought forth a delightful solo that has been rediscovered and edited by Trombonist Chris Buckholz. The solo is about 8-minutes in length for advanced performers.

Below is a gorgeous sample of some of the concert band version of the work (soon to be published) beautifully performed by Chris Buckholz, from his double CD album Versatility.

Not much is known about the origins of the Concertino, except that the three-movement work was most likely first written and performed by E-flat Cornet in the mid-19th Century by Sachse himself. Since that time, the work has been edited for Trombone and Bass Trombone.

Along with the David Concertino, the two works are great examples of German Romantic solo writing for the brass family.

Charles Vernon has arranged an excellent sounding edition for Alto Trombone and Piano of about 12 minutes in length for advanced performers.