During the middle ages these instruments were in such favour that an important part was given to them in all instrumental combinations. At Dresden,[7] 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.[8]
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 Hamburg, writing on the orchestra in 1713[9] gives a description of the Zinck as a member of the orchestra, but in 1739,[10] in his work on the perfect conductor, he deplores the decrease of its popularity in church music, from which it seems to be banished as useless. Gluck was the last composer of importance who scored for the cornet, as for instance in Orfeo, in Paride ed Elena, in Alceste and in Armide, &c. The great vogue of the curved cornet is not to be accounted for by its musical qualities, for it had a hard, hoarse, piercing sound, and it failed utterly in truth of intonation; these natural defects, moreover, could only be modified with great difficulty. Mersenne’s eulogium of the dessus, then more employed than the other cornets, can only be appreciated at its full value if we look upon the art of cornet playing as a lost art. “The dessus,” he says, “was used in the vocal concerts and to make the treble with the organ, which is ravishing when one knows how to play it to perfection like the Sieur Guiclet;” and again further on, “the character of its tone resembles the brilliance of a sunbeam piercing the darkness, when it is heard among the voices in churches, cathedrals or chapels.”[11] Mersenne further observes that the serpent is the true bass of the cornet, that one without the other is like body without soul. A drawing in pen and ink of a curved cornet is given by Randle Holme in his Academy of Armoury (1688);[12] and at the end of the description of the instrument he adds, “It is a delicate pleasant wind musick, if well played and humoured.” Giovanni Maria Artusi[13] of Bologna, writing at the end of the 16th century, devotes much space to the cornet, explaining in detail the three kinds of tonguing used with the instrument. By tonguing is understood a method of articulation into the mouthpiece of flute, cornet à pistons or trumpet, of certain syllables which add brilliance to the tone. Artusi advocates (1) for the guttural effect, ler, ler, ler, der, ler, der, ler; ter, ler, ter; ler, ter, ler; (2) for the tongue effect, tere, tere, tere; (3) for the dental effect, teche, teche, teche, used by those who wish to strike terror into the hearts of the hearers—an effect, however, which offends the ear. A clue to the popularity of the instrument during the middle ages may perhaps be found in Artusi’s remark that this instrument is the most apt in imitating the human voice, but that it is very difficult and fatiguing to play; the musician, he adds elsewhere, should adopt an instrument to imitate the voice as much as possible, such as the cornetto and the trombone. He mentions two players in Venice, Il Cavaliero del Cornetto and M. Girolamo da Udine, who excelled in the art of playing the cornet.
Being derived from the horn of an animal through which lateral holes had been pierced, the curved cornet was probably the earlier, and when the instrument came to be copied in metal and in wood the straight cornet was the result of an attempt to simplify the construction. The evolution probably took place in Asia Minor, where tubes with conical bore were the rule, and the instrument was thence introduced into Europe. A straight Zinck, having a grotesque animal’s head at the bell-end, and six holes visible, is pictured in a miniature of the 11th century.[14] What appears to be precisely the same kind of instrument, although differing widely in reality, the chaunter being reed-blown, is to be found in illuminated MSS. as the chaunter of the bagpipe, as for example in a royal roll of Henry III. at the British Museum,[15] where it occurs twice played by a man on stilts. The grotesque was probably added to the chaunter in imitation of that on the straight Zinck. Two stille Zincken or cornetti muti are among the musical instruments represented in the triumphal procession of the emperor Maximilian I.[16] (d. 1519), designed at his command by H. Burgmair under the superintendence of Albrecht Dürer.
(b) Cornet à Pistons, Cornet, Cornopaean (Fr. cornet à pistons; Ger. Cornett; Ital. cornetto), are the names of a modern brass wind instrument of the same pitch as the trumpet. Being a transformation of the old post-horn, the cornet should have a conical bore of wide diameter in proportion to the length of tube, but in practice usually only a small portion of the tube is conical, i.e. from the mouthpiece to the slide of the first valve and from the slide of the third valve to the bell. The tube of the cornet is doubled round upon itself. The cup-shaped mouthpiece is larger than that of the trumpet; the shape of the cup in conjunction with the length of the tube and the proportions of the bore determines the timbre of the instrument. The outline of the bottom of the cup, where it communicates with the bore, is of the greatest importance.[17] If, as in the trumpet, it presents angles against which the column of air breaks, it produces a brilliant tone quality. In the cornet mouthpiece there are no angles at the bottom of the cup, which curves into the bore; hence the cornet’s loose, coarse quality of tone. The sound is produced by stretching the lips across the mouthpiece, and making them act as double reeds, set in vibration by the breath. There are no fixed notes on the cornet as in instruments with lateral holes, or with keys; the musical scale is obtained by means of the power the performer possesses—once he has learned how to use it—of producing the notes of the harmonic series by overblowing, i.e. by varying the tension of the lips and the pressure of breath. In the cornet this series is short, comprising only the harmonics from the 2nd to the 8th:
Harmonic series of the B♭ cornet—the 7th is slightly flat, a defect which the performer corrects, if he uses the note at all.
The intermediate notes completing the chromatic scale are obtained by means of three pistons which, on being depressed, open valves leading into supplementary wind-ways, which lengthen the original tube. The pitch of the instrument is thus lowered respectively one tone, half a tone, and one tone and a half. The action of the piston temporarily changes the key of the instrument and with it the notes of the harmonic series. Before a performer, therefore, can play a note he must know in which harmonic series it is best obtained and use the proper piston in conjunction with the requisite lip tension. By means of the pistons the compass of the cornet is thus extended from
| Real sounds for the cornet in C. |
(The minims indicate the practical compass but the extension shown by the crotchets is possible to all good players.)
The treble clef is used in notation, and in England the music for the cornet is usually written as sounded, but most French and German composers score for it as for a transposing instrument; for example, the music for the B♭ cornet is written in a key one tone higher than that of the composition.