Scientific American Supplement No. 819, September 12, 1891

by Various

There are several clarinets of various pitches, and formerly more than are used now, owing to the difficulty of playing except in handy keys. In the modern orchestra the A and B flat clarinets are the most used; in the military band, B flat and E flat. The C clarinet is not much used now. All differ in tone and quality; the A one is softer than the B flat; the C is shrill. The B flat is the virtuoso instrument. In military bands the clarinet takes the place which would be that of the violin in the orchestra, but the tone of it is always characteristically different. Although introduced in the time of Handel and Bach those composers made no use of it. With Mozart it first became a leading orchestral instrument.

The Basset horn, which has become the sensuously beautiful alto clarinet in E flat, is related to the clarinet in the same way that the cor Anglais is to the oboe. Basset is equivalent to Baryton (there is a Basset flute figured in Prætorius), and this instrument appears to have been invented by one Horn, living at Passau, in Bavaria, about 1770. His name given to the instrument has been mistranslated into Italian as Corno di Bassetto. There is a bass clarinet employed with effect by Meyerbeer in the "Huguenots," but the characteristic clarinet tone is less noticeable; it is, however, largely used in military bands. The Basset horn had the deep compass of the bass clarinet which separates it from the present alto clarinet, although it was more like the alto in caliber. The alto clarinet is also used in military bands; and probably what the Basset horn would have been written for is divided between the present bass and alto clarinets.

Preceding the invention of the sarrusophone, by which a perfected oboe was contrived in a brass instrument, a modified brass instrument, the saxophone, bearing a similar relation to the clarinet, was invented in 1846 by Sax, whose name will occur again and again in connection with important inventions in military band instruments. The saxophone is played like the clarinet with the intervention of a beating reed, but is not cylindrical; it has a conical tube like the oboe. The different shape of the column of air changes the first available harmonic obtained by overblowing to the octave instead of the twelfth; and also in consequence of the greater strength of the even harmonics, distinctly changing the tone quality. The sarrusophone may fairly be regarded as an oboe or bassoon; but the saxophone is not so closely related to the clarinet. There are four sizes of saxophone now made between high soprano and bass. Starting from the fourth fundamental note, each key can be employed in the next higher octave, by the help of other two keys, which, being opened successively, set up a vibrating loop. The saxophones, although difficult to play, fill an important place in the military music of France and Belgium, and have been employed with advantage in the French orchestra. The fingering of all saxophones is that attributed to Boehm.

The cup shaped mouthpiece must now take the place of the reed in our attention. Here the lips fit against a hollow cup shaped reservoir, and, acting as vibrating membranes, may be compared with the vocal chords of the larynx. They have been described as acting as true reeds. Each instrument in which such a mouthpiece is employed requires a slightly different form of it. The French horn is the most important brass instrument in modern music. It consists of a body of conical shape about seven feet long, without the crooks, ending in a large bell, which spreads out to a diameter of fifteen inches. The crooks are fitted between the body and the mouthpiece; they are a series of smaller interchangeable tubings, which extend in length as they descend in pitch, and set the instrument in different keys. The mouthpiece is a funnel shaped tube of metal, by preference silver; and, in the horn, is exceptionally not cup shaped, but the reverse: it tapers, as a cone, from three-quarters of an inch diameter to about a minimum of three-sixteenths of an inch, and is a quarter of an inch where the smaller end of the mouthpiece is inserted in the upper opening of the crook. The first horn has a mouthpiece of rather less diameter than the second. The peculiar mouthpiece and narrow tubing have very much to do with the soft voice-like tone quality of the horn. For convenience of holding, the tubing is bent in a spiral form. There is a tuning slide attached to the body, and, of late years, valves have been added to the horn, similar to those applied to the cornet and other wind instruments. They have, to a considerable extent, superseded hand stopping, by which expedient the intonation could be altered a semitone or whole tone, by depression of the natural notes of the instrument. In brass, or other instruments, the natural harmonics depend on the pressure of blowing; and the brass differs entirely from the wood wind, in this respect, that it is rare, or with poor effect, the lowest or fundamental note can be made to sound. Stopping the horn is done by extending the open hand some way up the bore; there is half stopping and whole stopping, according to the interval, the half tone or whole tone required. As may be imagined, the stopped notes are weak and dull compared with the open. On the other hand, the tubing introduced for valves not being quite conformable in curve with the instrument, and hampered with indispensable joins, unless in the best form of modern valve, affects the smoothness of tone. No doubt there has been of late years a great improvement in the manufacture of valves. Many horns are still made with crooks covering an octave from B flat to B flat, 8 feet 6 inches to 17 feet; but most players now use only the F crook, and trust to the valves, rather than to change the crooks, so that we lose the fullness of sound of those below F. The natural horn was originally in D, but was not always restricted to that key; there have been horns for F, G, high A, and B flat. This may, however, be said for the valve horn, that it does not limit or restrict composers in writing for the open or natural notes, which are always more beautiful in effect.

Valves were invented and first introduced in Prussia about A.D. 1815. At first there were two, but there are now generally three. In this country and France they are worked by pistons, which, when pressed down, give access for the air into channels or supplementary tubings on one side of the main bore, thus lengthening it by a tone for the first valve, a semitone for the second, and a tone and a semitone for the third. When released by the finger, the piston returns by the action of a spring. In large bass and contralto instruments, a fourth piston is added, which lowers the pitch two tones and a semitone. By combining the use of three valves, lower notes are obtained—thus, for a major third, the second is depressed with the third; for a fourth, the first and third; and for the tritone, the first, second, and third. But the intonation becomes imperfect when valves are used together, because the lengths of additional tubing being calculated for the single depressions, when added to each other, they are too short for the deeper notes required. By an ingenious invention of compensating pistons, Mr. Blaikley, of Messrs. Boosey's, has practically rectified this error without extra moving parts or altered fingering. In the valve section, each altered note becomes a fundamental for another harmonic scale. In Germany a rotary valve, a kind of stop cock, is preferred to the piston. It is said to give greater freedom of execution, the closeness of the shake being its best point, but is more expensive and liable to derangement. The invention of M. Adolphe Sax, of a single ascending piston in place of a group of descending ones, by which the tube is shortened instead of lengthened, met, for a time, with influential support. It is suitable for both conical and cylindrical instruments, and has six valves, which are always used independently. However, practical difficulties have interfered with its success. With any valve system, however, a difficulty with the French horn is its great variation in length by crooks, inimical to the principle of the valve system, which relies upon an adjustment by aliquot parts. It will, however, be seen that the invention of valves has, by transforming and extending wind instruments, so as to become chromatic, given many advantages to the composer. Yet it must, at the same time, be conceded, in spite of the increasing favor shown for valve instruments, that the tone must issue more freely, and with more purity and beauty, from a simple tube than from tubes with joinings and other complications, that interfere with the regularity and smoothness of vibration, and, by mechanical facilities, tend to promote a dull uniformity of tone quality.

Owing to the changes of pitch by crooks, it is not easy to define the compass of the French horn. Between C in the bass clef and G above the treble will represent its serviceable notes. It is better that the first horn should not descend below middle C, or the second rise above the higher E of the treble clef. Four are generally used in modern scores. The place of the horn is with the wood wind band. From Handel, every composer has written for it, and what is known as the small orchestra of string and wood wind bands combined is completed by this beautiful instrument.

The most prominent instruments that add to the splendor of the full orchestra are trumpets and trombones. They are really members of one family, as the name trombone—big trumpet—implies, and blend well together. The trumpet is an instrument of court and state functions, and, as the soprano instrument, comes first. It is what is known as an eight foot instrument in pitch, and gives the different harmonics from the third to the twelfth, and even to the sixteenth. It is made of brass, mixed metal, or silver, and is about five feet seven inches in real length, when intended for the key of F without a slide; but is twice turned back upon itself, the first and third lengths lying contiguous, and the second about two inches from them. The diameter is three-eighths of an inch along the cylindrical length; it then widens out for about fifteen inches, to form the bell.

When fitted with a slide for transposition—an invention for the trumpet in the last century—this double tubing, about five inches in length on each side, is connected with the second length. It is worked from the center with the second and third fingers of the right band, and, when pulled back, returns to its original position by a spring. There are five crooks. The mouthpiece is hemispherical and convex, and the exact shape of it is of great importance. It has a rim with slightly rounded surface. The diameter of the mouthpiece varies according to the player and the pitch required. With the first crook, or rather shank, and mouthpiece, the length of the trumpet is increased to six feet, and the instrument is then in the key of F. The second shank transposes it to E, the third to E flat, and the fourth to D. The fifth, and largest—two feet one and a half inches long—extends the instrument to eight feet, and lowers the key to C. The slide is used for transposition by a semitone or a whole tone, thus making new fundamentals, and correcting certain notes of the natural harmonic scale, as the seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth, which do not agree with our musical scale. Mr. W. Wyatt has recently taken out a patent for a double-slide trumpet, which possesses a complete chromatic scale. In the required length of slide the ear has always to assist. It is clear that the very short shifts of a double slide demand great nicety of manipulation. It is, of course, different with the valve trumpet. The natural trumpets are not limited to one or two keys, but those in F, E, E flat, D, B flat, and even A have been employed; but, usually, the valve trumpets are in F, and the higher B flat, with a growing inclination, but an unfortunate one, to be restricted to the latter, it being easier for cornet players. The tone of the high B flat trumpet cannot, however, compare with the F one, and with it the lowest notes are lost. Of course, when there are two or three trumpets, the high B flat one finds a place. However, the valve system applied to the trumpet is not regarded with satisfaction, as it makes the tone dull. For grand heroic effect, valve trumpets cannot replace the natural trumpets with slides, which are now only to be heard in this country.

The simple or field trumpet appears to exist now in one representative only, the E flat cavalry trumpet. Bach wrote for trumpets up to the twentieth harmonic—but for this the trumpet had to be divided into a principal, which ended at the tenth harmonic—and the clarino in two divisions, the first of which went from the eighth harmonic up to as high as the player could reach, and the second clarino, from the sixth to the twelfth. The use of the clarinet by composers about the middle of the last century seems to have abolished these very high trumpets. So completely had they gone, by the time of Mozart, that he had to change Handel's trumpet parts, to accommodate them to performers of his own time, and transfer the high notes to the oboes and clarinets.

Having alluded to the cornet à piston, it may be introduced here, particularly as from being between a trumpet and a bugle, and of four foot tone, it is often made to do duty for the more noble trumpet. But the distinctive feature of this, as of nearly all brass instruments since the invention of valves, tends to a compromise instrument, which owes its origin to the bugle. The cornet à piston is now not very different from the valve bugle in B flat on the one hand and from the small valve trumpet in the same key on the other. It is a hybrid between this high pitch trumpet and the bugle, but compared with the latter it has a much smaller bell. By the use of valves and pistons, with which it was the first to be endowed, the cornet can easily execute passages of consecutive notes that in the natural trumpet can only be got an octave higher. It is a facile instrument, and double tonguing, which is also possible with the horn and trumpet, is one of its popular means for display. It has a harmonic compass from middle C to C above the treble clef, and can go higher, but with difficulty. A few lower notes, however, are easily taken with the valves.