Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/188

Rh break the rigid straight line. Examination of the tube, however, reveals the secret of the characteristic sweet tone of this latter kind of cornet; unsuspected inside the top of the tube is cut out of the thickness of the wood a mouthpiece, not cup-shaped, but like a funnel similar to that of the French horn, which merges gradually into the bore of the instrument. This mode of construction, together with the narrower bore adopted, greatly influenced the timbre of the instrument, whose softer tone was thus due mainly to the substitution of the funnel for the sharp angle of incidence at the bottom of the cup mouthpiece known as the throat (see ), where it communicates with the tube. It is this sharp angle, which in the other cornets with detachable mouthpiece, causes the column of air to break, producing a shrill quality of tone, while the wider bore and slightly rough walls of the tube account for the harshness. In Germany the sweet-toned cornet was known as stiller or sanfter Zinck, and in Italy as cornetto muto (fig. 1), while in France the instruments with detachable mouthpiece were distinguished by the addition of à bouquin (= with mouthpiece). The curved cornet (Ger. krummer Zinck or Stadtkalb; Ital. cornetto curvo) could not for obvious reasons have the bore pierced through a single piece of wood; the channel for the vibrating column of air was, therefore, hollowed out of two pieces of wood, the diameter increasing from the mouthpiece to the lower end. The two pieces of wood thus prepared were joined together with glue and covered with leather, the outer surface of the tube being finished off in octagonal shape. The separate mouthpiece, made indifferently of wood, horn, ivory or metal, analogous to that of the trumpet, was distinctly cup-shaped and fixed by a tenon to the upper extremity of the pipe. The primitive instrument was an animal’s horn.

Pipes of such short length give only, besides the first or fundamental, the second and sometimes the third note of the harmonic series. Thus a pipe that has for its fundamental A will, if the pressure of breath and tension of the lips be steadily increased, give the octave A and the twelfth E. In order to connect the first and second harmonics diatonically, the length of the pipe was progressively shortened by boring lateral holes through the tube for the fingers to cover. The successive opening of these holes furnished the instrumentalist with the different intervals of the scale, six holes sufficing for this purpose:



The fundamental was thus connected with its octave by all the degrees of a diatonic scale, which became chromatic by the help of cross-fingering and the greater or less tension of the lips stretched as vibrating reeds across the opening of the mouthpiece. This increased compass of twenty-seven notes obtained by cross-fingering is very clearly shown in a table by Eisel. The fingering was completed by a seventh hole, which had for its object the production of the octave without the necessity of closing all the holes in order to produce the second note of the harmonic series. The first complete octave, thus obtained by a succession of fundamental notes, was easily octaved by a stronger pressure of breath and tension of the lips across the mouthpiece, and thus the ordinary limits of the compass of a Zinck or cornet could be extended to a fifteenth. Whether straight or curved it was pierced laterally with seven holes, six through the front, and the seventh, that nearest the mouthpiece, through the back. The first three holes were usually covered with the third, second and first fingers of the right hand, the next four with the third, second and first fingers and the thumb of the left hand. But some instrumentalists inverted the position of the hands. Virdung shows, besides the cornetto recto, a kind of Zinck made of an animal’s horn with only four holes, three in the front of the pipe and one at the back. Such an instrument as this had naturally a very limited compass, since these four holes only sufficed to produce the intermediate notes between the second and third proper tones of the harmonic scale, the lower octave comprised between the first and second remaining incomplete; by overblowing, however, the next octave would be obtained in addition.

At the beginning of the 17th century Praetorius represents the Zincken as a complete family comprising: (1) the little Zinck with the lowest note, (2) the ordinary Zinck with the lowest note, (3) the great Zinck, cornon or corno torto, a great cornet in the shape of an with the lowest note. In France the family was composed of the following instruments:

(1) The dessus or treble cornet with the lowest note ;

(2) the haute-contre or alto cornet with the lowest note ;

(3) the taille or tenor cornet with the lowest note and the basse or bass or pédalle cornet with the lowest note.

The cornets of the lowest pitch were sometimes furnished with an open key which, when closed, lengthened the tube, and extended the compass downwards by a note. Mersenne figures a cornon with a key.

During the middle ages these instruments were in such favour that an important part was given to them in all instrumental combinations. At Dresden, between 1647 and 1651, the Kapelle of the electoral prince of Saxony included two cornets, the bass being supplied by the trombone. Monteverde introduced two cornets in the 3rd and 4th acts of his Orfeo (1607). In France the charges for the Chapelle-Musique of the kings of France for the year 1619 contain two entries of the sum of 450 livres tournois, salary paid to one Marcel Cayty, joueur de cornet, a post held by him from 1604 until at least 1631, when another cornet player, Jean Daneau, is also mentioned.

In Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries, Zincken were used with trombones in the churches to accompany the chorales. There are examples of this use of the instrument in the sacred cantatas of J. S. Bach, where the cornet is added to the upper voice parts to strengthen them. Johann Mattheson, conductor of the opera at