The cromornes were in very general use in Europe from the 14th to the 17th century, and are to be found in illustrations of pageants, as for instance in the magnificent collection of woodcuts designed by Hans Burgmair, a pupil of Albrecht Dürer, representing the triumph of the emperor Maximilian,[8] where a bass and a tenor Krumbhorn player figure in the procession among countless other musicians. In the inventory of the wardrobe, &c., belonging to Henry VIII. at Westminster, made during the reign of Edward VI., we find eighteen crumhornes (see British Museum, Harleian MS. 1419, ff. 202b and 205). The cromornes did not always form an orchestra by themselves, but were also used in concert with other instruments and notably with flutes and oboes, as in municipal bands and in the private bands of princes. In 1685 the orchestra of the Neue Kirche at Strassburg comprised two tournebouts or cromornes, and until the middle of the 18th century these instruments formed part of the court band known as “Musique de la Grande Écurie” in the service of the French kings. They are first mentioned in the accounts for the year 1662, together with the tromba-marina, although the instrument was already highly esteemed in the 16th century. In that year five players of the cromorne were enrolled among the musicians of the Grande Écurie du Roi;[9] they received a yearly salary of 120 livres, which various supplementary allowances brought up to about 330 livres. In 1729 one of the cromorne players sold his appointment for 4000 francs. This was a sign of the failing popularity of the instrument. The duties of the cromorne and tromba-marina players consisted in playing in the great divertissements and at court functions and festivals in honour of royal marriages, births and thanksgivings.
Cromornes have become of extreme rarity and are not to be found in all collections. The Paris Conservatoire possesses one large bass cromorne of the 16th century, the Kgl. Hochschule für Musik,[10] Berlin, a set of seven, and the Ambroser Sammlung, Vienna, a cromorne in E♭.[11] The museum of the Conservatoire Royal de Musique at Brussels has the good fortune to possess a complete family which is said to have belonged to the duke of Ferrara, Alphonso II. d’Este, a prince who reigned from 1559 to 1597. The soprano (cantus or discant) has the same compass as above, while those of the alto, the tenor (furnished with a key) and the bass are as shown.
The bass (see figure), besides having two keys, is distinguished from the others by two contrivances like small bolts, which slide in grooves and close the two holes that give the lowest notes of the instrument. The use of these bolts, placed at the extremity of the tournebout and out of reach of the fingers of the instrumentalist, renders necessary the assistance of a person whose sole mission is to attend to them during the performance. E. van der Straeten[12] mentions a key belonging to a large cromorne bearing the date 1537, of which he gives a large drawing. A cromorne appears in a musical scene with a trumpet in Hermann Finck’s Practica Musica.[13]
The “Platerspil,” of which Virdung gives a drawing, is only a kind of cromorne. It is characterized by having, instead of a cap to cover the reed, a spherical receiver surrounding the reed, to which the tube for insufflation is adapted. The Platerspiel is also frequently classified among bagpipes. In the Cantigas di Sante Maria,[14] a MS. of the 13th century preserved in the Escorial, Madrid, two instruments of this type are represented. One of these has two straight, parallel pipes, slightly conical; the other is frankly conical with wide bore turned up at the end.
Other instruments belonging by their most important characteristics of cylindrical bore and double reed to the same family as the cromorne, although the bore was somewhat differently disposed, are the racket bassoon and the sourdine or sordelline. The latter was introduced into the orchestra by Cavaliere in his opera Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo, and is described by Giudotto[15] in his edition of the score as “Flauti overo due tibie all’ antica che noi chiamiamo sordelline,” a description which tallies with what has been said above concerning the aulos and tibia.
(V. M. and K. S.)
[1] Crumhorne need not be regarded as a corruption of the German, since the two words of which it is composed were both in use in medieval England. Crumb = curved; crumbe = hook, bend; crome = a staff with a hook at the end of it. See Stratmann’s Middle English Dictionary (1891), and Halliwell, Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (London, 1881).
[2] See A. Howard, “Aulos or Tibia,” Harvard Studies, iv. (Boston, 1893).