In the clarion, therefore, we have the ancestor of the modern trumpet. We cannot mistake its voice. Lavignac calls it “a stately and heraldic instrument.” That is a good characterization; for when we hear the sound of the trumpet, we picture processions, tournaments and pageants of historic and romantic times.
“To describe it in brief, we may say it is the soprano of the horn family. It has nearly the same harmonic scale, but moves in a region at once higher and more restricted. It differs from the horn in that it produces only the open sounds. Closed sounds are unknown to it; and if attempted would produce only an unpleasant effect.
“Like the horn, the trumpet is a transposing instrument. It has a number of crooks,[26] or lengthening pieces.
TRUMPET, SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
Carl Heinrich
“Of great agility, the trumpet is admirably suited to rapid figures, arpeggios and especially to repetitions of notes. Besides noisy fanfares and strident calls, it is able to produce in piano, or pianissimo, effects either fantastic, or of extreme sweetness.”
Berlioz says: “The quality of the trumpet tone is noble and brilliant. It suits with warlike ideas, with cries of fury and vengeance, as with songs of triumph. It lends itself to the expression of all energetic and lofty and grand sentiments and to the majority of tragic accents. It may even figure in a jocund piece, provided the joy assume a character of pomp and grandeur.”
“The first improvement in the trumpet,” writes Carl Heinrich, “was made by Meyer of Hamburg in the Eighteenth Century. This was a practical mouthpiece. In 1780 Wogel added tubes by which the performer was enabled to play in tune with other instruments. Wiedenger, the court-trumpeter in Vienna (1801), added stops to the trumpet by means of which the player could reach two octaves in chromatic tones. Other improvements were made by German and French players; but it was not until the keys were applied that the trumpet began to approach its present condition. By the use of keys it became possible for the chromatic tones to equal the natural ones, and for the player to perform difficult passages with ease. The first trumpets with keys were manufactured by Sattler of Leipzig. Striegel, who played in the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, introduced improvements in the bore and tubing.