Trumpet and Sackbut.
“The story of the trumpet is the story of panoply and pomp,” says Mr Galpin, and goes on to explain how the trumpeters with drummers formed an exclusive guild. Trumpets served as war-like instruments, but also for domestic pomp. Thus twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums sounded while Queen Elizabeth’s dinner was being brought in. That monarch had certainly no excuse for being late for her meals.
The trumpet was originally a long straight
cylindrical tube, but as early as 1300 the tube was bent into a loop, thus combining length with handiness. This form of the instrument was known as a clarion, a word which has degenerated in our day into a picturesque word for a trumpet. It was for the clarion that Bach and Handel wrote trumpet parts which, I gather, are almost unplayable on the modern instrument. The clarion seems to have been soon beaten in the struggle for life by the clarinet, “which, as its name implies, was considered an effective substitute for the high clarion notes.”
The sackbut, i.e. trombone, is an important offshoot from the trumpet. The essential feature of this splendid instrument is that the length of the tube can be altered at will. Thus the performer is not—like the trumpeter—confined to one series of harmonics, but can take advantage of a whole series of these accessory notes.