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:
[Illustration]
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 [Illustration: musical scale--E above middle C], (2)
the ordinary _Zinck_ with the lowest note [Illustration: musical
scale--A below middle C], (3) the great _Zinck_, _cornon_ or _corno
torto_, a great cornet in the shape of an [Illustration: reverse S]
with the lowest note [Illustration: musical scale--D above low C "or"
low C]. In France[5] the family was composed of the following
instruments:
(1) The _dessus_ or treble cornet with the lowest note [Illustration:
musical scale--A below middle C];
(2) the _haute-contre_ or alto cornet with the lowest note
[Illustration: musical scale--F below middle C];
(3) the _taille_ or tenor cornet with the lowest note [Illustration:
musical scale--D above low C] and the _basse_ or bass or _pedalle_[6]
cornet with the lowest note [Illustration: musical scale--G below low
C].
The cornets of the lowest pitch were sometimes furnished with an open
key which, when closed, lengthened the tube, and extended the compass
downwards by a note. Mersenne figures a _cornon_ with a key.
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 a 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 Durer.
(b) CORNET A PISTONS, CORNET, CORNOPAEAN (Fr. _cornet a 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:
[Illustration: Harmonic series of the B[flat] 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 [graphic] to [graphic].
[Illustration: 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[flat] cornet is written in a key one tone higher than
that of the composition.
The _timbre_ of the cornet lies somewhere between that of the horn and
the trumpet, having the blaring, penetrating quality of the latter
without its brilliant noble sonorousness. The great favour with which
the cornet meets is due to the facility with which it speaks, to the
little fatigue it causes, and to the simplicity of its mechanism. We
must, however, regret from the point of view of art that its success has
been so great, and that it has ended in usurping in brass bands the
place of the bugles, the tone colour of which is infinitely preferable
as a foundation for an ensemble composed entirely of brass instruments.
Even the symphonic orchestra has not been secure from its intrusion, and
the growing tendency in some orchestras, notably in France, to allow the
cornet to supersede the trumpet, to the great detriment of tone colour,
is to be deplored. The cornet used in a rich orchestral harmony is of
value for completing the chords of trumpets, or to undertake diatonic
and chromatic passages which on account of their rapidity cannot easily
be fingered by trombones or horns. The technical possibilities of the
instrument are very great, almost unrivalled in the brass wind:--notes
sustained, crescendo or diminuendo; diatonic and chromatic scale and
arpeggio passages; leaps, shakes, and in fact all kinds of musical
figures in any key, can be played with great facility on the
three-valved cornet. Double tonguing is also practicable, the
articulation with the tongue of the syllables _ti-ke_ for double, and of
_ti-ke-ti_ for triple time producing a striking staccato effect.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--B[flat] Cornet with enharmonic valves (Besson &
Co.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--B[flat] Cornet with strictly conical bore
throughout, Klussmann's patent (Rudall, Carte & Co.)]
The cornet was evolved in Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century,
from the post-horn, by the application of the newly invented pistons of
Stoelzel and Bluemel patented in 1815. It was introduced into Great
Britain and France about 1830. There were at first only two pistons--for
a whole tone and for a half tone--from which there naturally resulted
gaps in the chromatic scale of the instrument. The use of a combination
of pistons (see BOMBARDON and VALVES) fails to give acoustically correct
intervals, because the length of tubing thus thrown open is not of the
theoretical length required to produce the interval. A tube about 4 ft.
long, such as that of the B[flat] cornet, needs an additional length of
about 3 in. to lower the pitch a semitone; but, if this cornet has
already been lowered one tone to the key of A[flat], the length of tube
has increased some 6 in., and the 3-in. semitone piston no longer adds
sufficient tubing to produce a semitone of correct intonation. To the
performer falls the task of concealing the shortcomings of his
instrument, and he therefore corrects the intonation by varying the lip
tension. At first the cornet was supplied with a great many crooks for
A, A[flat], G, F, E, E[flat] and D, but from the explanation now given,
it will be readily understood that they were found unpractical for valve
instruments, and all but the first two mentioned have been abandoned.
The history of the cornet is a record of the endeavours of successive
musical instrument makers to overcome this inherent defect in
construction. The most ingenious and successful of these improvements
are the following:--(1) The _six-valve-independent system_[18] of
Adolphe Sax, designed about 1850, by which a separate valve was used for
each position, thus obviating the necessity of using combinations of
pistons. This theoretically perfect system unfortunately introduced
great difficulties in practice, the valves being made _ascending_
instead of _descending_, and each piston cutting off a definite length
of wind-way from the open tube, instead of adding to it. The system was
eventually abandoned. (2) The _Besson Registre_ giving eight independent
positions, afterwards modified as the (3) _Besson compensating system
transpositeur_, patented in England in 1859, which was considered so
successful that the idea was extensively used by other makers. (4) The
_Boosey automatic compensating piston_, invented by D. J. Blaikley, and
patented in 1878, a very ingenious device whereby when two or more
pistons are used simultaneously the length of the air column is
automatically adjusted to the theoretical length required to ensure
correct intonation. (5) Victor Mahillon's automatic regulating pistons
(_pistons regulateur automatique_) produced about 1886, the result of
independent efforts in the same direction as Blaikley, and equally
ingenious and effectual.[19] Finally we have (6) more recently the
_Besson enharmonic valve system_ (fig. 3) with three pistons and six
independent tuning slides which give the seven positions independently,
thus realizing in a simple effectual manner all that Sax strove to
accomplish with his six pistons. The enharmonic valves give all notes
theoretically true; there are in addition separate means for adjusting
each of the first six lengths, for although these lengths are
theoretically correct there are always certain modifying conditions
connected with brass instruments which render it essential to provide
means for adjustment. All notes being true on this Besson cornet, they
can be fingered to the greatest advantage for smoothness and rapidity.
(7) Rudall, Carte & Co.'s cornet (fig. 4), with strictly conical bore
(Klussmann's patent) throughout the open tube and additional lengths
from the mouthpiece to the bell, gives a perfect intonation and is at
the same time easy to blow. There are no crooks to this cornet when
constructed in B[flat], but it may be instantaneously transposed into
the key of A major by means of an undetachable slide guided by a piston
rod. (V. M.; K. S.)