CORNET, a word having two distinct significations and two etymological histories, both, however, ultimately referable to the same Latin origin:—
1. (Fr. cornette, dim. of corne, from Lat. cornu, a horn), a small standard, formerly carried by a troop of cavalry, and similar to the pennon in form, narrowing gradually to a point. The term was then applied to the body of cavalry which carried a cornet. In this sense it is used in the military literature of the 16th century and, less frequently, in that of the 17th. Before the close of the 16th century, however, the world had also come to mean a junior officer of a troop of cavalry who, like the “ensign” of foot, carried the colour. The spelling “coronet” occurs in the 16th century, and has perhaps contributed to obscure the derivation of “colonel” or “coronel.” The rank of “cornet” remained in the British cavalry until the general adoption of the term “second lieutenant.” In the Boer republics “field-cornets” were local subordinate officers of the commando (q.v.), the unit of the military forces. Elected for three years by the wards into which the electoral districts were divided, they had administrative as well as military duties, and acted as magistrates, inspectors of natives and registration officers for their respective wards. In 1907, the “field-cornet” system was re-established in the Transvaal; the new duties of the “field-cornets” are those performed by assistant magistrates, viz. petty jurisdiction, registration of voters, births and deaths, the carrying out of regulations as to animal diseases, and maintenance of roads. The “field-cornets” are appointed by government for three years.
2. (Fr. cornet, Ital. cornetto, Med. Lat. cornetum, a bugle, from Lat. cornu, a horn), in music, the name of two varieties of wind instruments (see below), and also of certain stops of the organ. The great organ “solo cornet” was a mixture or compound stop, having either 5, 4, or 3 ranges of pipes; occasionally it was placed on a separate soundboard, when it was known as a “mounted cornet.” The “echo cornet” was a similar stop, but softer and enclosed in a box. In German and Dutch organs the term cornet is sometimes applied to a pedal reed stop.
 | |
| From Capt. C. R. Day’s Descriptive Catalogueof Musical Instruments, by permission of Messrs.Eyre & Spottiswoode. | |
| Fig. 1.—Cornetto Muto. | Fig. 2.—Cornetto Curvo. |
(a) Cornet or Cornett (Fr. cornet, cornet à bouquin; Ger. Zinck, Zincken; Ital. cornetto) is the name given to a family of wood wind instruments, now obsolete, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece and a conical bore without a bell, and differing entirely from the modern cornet à pistons. The old cornets were of two kinds, the straight and the curved, characterized by radical differences in construction. There were two very different kinds of straight cornets (Ger. gerader Zinck, Ital. cornetto diretto or recto), the one most commonly used having a detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece similar to that of the trumpet, while the other was made to all appearance without mouthpiece, there being not even a moulded rim at the end of the tube to 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 [Mouthpiece]), 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,[1] 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.[2] 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[3] 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[4] represents the Zincken as a complete family comprising: (1) the little Zinck with the lowest note