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The cornett (, ) is a Labrosone wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. Although smaller and larger sizes were made in both straight and curved forms, surviving cornetts are mostly curved, built in the treble size from in length, usually described as in G. The note sounded with all finger-holes covered is A, which can be lowered a further whole tone to G by slackening the embouchure. The name cornett comes from the Italian cornetto, meaning "small horn".
It was used in performances by professional musicians for both state and liturgical music, especially accompanying choral music. It also featured in popular music in alta capella or loud wind ensembles. British organologist Anthony Baines wrote that the cornett "was praised in the very terms that were to be bestowed upon the oboe ...: it could be sounded as loud as a trumpet and as soft as a recorder, and its tone approached that of the human voice more nearly than that of any other instrument." It was popular in Germany, where trumpet-playing was restricted to professional trumpet guild members. As well, the mute cornett variant was a quiet instrument, playing "gentle, soft and sweet."
The cornett is not to be confused with the modern cornet, a valved brass instrument with a separate origin and development. The English spelling cornet, which had applied to the cornett since about 1400, was in around 1836 transferred to the cornet à pistons, the predecessor of the modern cornet. Subsequently, cornett became the modern English spelling of the older instrument.
The instrument has features of both the trumpet and a woodwind instrument. Like the trumpet, the cornett has a small cup-shaped mouthpiece, where the instrument is sounded with the player's lips. Like many woodwind instruments, it has fingered (and rarely, keys) to determine the pitch by shortening the vibrating air column, although pitch can also be adjusted by varying the tension of the player's embochure.
The cornett has six finger holes and, like the recorder, a single thumb hole on the opposite side. Together these allow the instrument to play a diatonic scale. A small number of cornetts were built with seven holes, and French instruments often lacked a thumbhole. By using "cross fingering" and by varying the embouchure tension, the instrument can play a chromatic scale. A player in 1738 who mastered the cross-fingering and lip tension was documented to have reached 27 notes and half notes. In comparison, Praetorius gave cornetts credit for achieving 15 notes, before players used techniques to expand the range.
The cornett has a conical bore, narrow at the mouthpiece and widening towards the bell. The ordinary curved treble cornett is made by splitting a length of wood, usually walnut, boxwood or other like plum, cherry or pear. The bore is carved out and the two halves then glued back together, and the outside planed to an octagonal cross section. The whole is then further bound tightly in thin black leather or parchment. A small number of surviving instruments were made from one straight piece, bored on a lathe, and then bent into a curve with steam. The finger holes and thumb hole are then bored in the instrument, and are slightly undercut.
The socket for the mouthpiece at the narrow end is sometimes reinforced with a brass collar, and sometimes ornamental silver or brass are added to reinforce each end of the instrument, especially in Austrian- or German-made cornetts. The separate cup mouthpiece is usually made of horn, ivory, or bone, with a thin rim and thread-wrapped shank, which is used to tune the instrument. Because it usually lacks a (seventh) little finger hole, its lowest note is A below middle C, though G is readily obtained by adjusting the embouchure.
Mute cornetts were usually made of boxwood. The top of the instrument is narrow; the bore is about wide at the top of the instrument, with a cone-shaped mouthpiece carved into the top across and deep.
Most cornetts are shaped with gradual curve, greater than 90°, a single curve like a comma, or an S-curve. The instrument has a conical bore, and the outside shaped to have an octagonal cross-section. Curved cornets were traditionally black, the wood covered in thin black leather.
The cornett was, like many Renaissance and Baroque instruments, made in a family of sizes. Four extant sizes are the soprano ( cornettino), the treble or curved cornett, the alto, the tenor cornett or lizard and the rare bass cornett, which was supplanted by the serpent in the 17th century.
Although the French and German names imply it was bass instrument, it is placed as a tenor instrument by organologists Sibyl Marcuse and Anthony Baines, who both point out that two examples of a "real bass" instrument exist.
The cornone was pitched about a fifth below the alto cornett, with a playing range of C to D.
Even though tenor and bass instruments were created for the family, these came later in the instrument's development, perhaps as long as 50 years after the instrument became mainstream. The instrument was paired with other instruments to play the lower ranges, especially trombones.
This instrument's name tells something of its tonal nature. Its "gentle, soft and sweet" sound is different than the other cornetts because of its mouthpiece, and can be used in a consort of viols or recorders.
The mouthpiece is similar to that in a French horn; instead of being a cup like the other cornetts, it is a cone, about deep. Inside it transitions from cone to instrumental bore smoothly, without "sharpness."
On the outside, there isn't an obvious lip carved.
Praetorius drew a tenor mute cornett, with a seventh hole covered and labeled that a lower note could be reached by covering the base. In that range, the six holes with thumb hole could have delivered A to F. The extra plate would make it G to F, with the base covered F to F.
Front row:
Aurignacian pipes, fashioned with four finger holes 26,000–40,000 years ago from the slender bones of bird wings or mammoth ivory, have long been considered flutes. Recovered from Vogelherd Cave and other caves in the Swabian Jura in Germany, they are among the oldest musical instruments yet discovered. British music archaeologist Graeme Lawson found that a replica of a complete specimen played as a flute has an indistinct whispery sound, but produces the first five notes of the diatonic series in a clear, strident tone when played as an end-blown lip reed instrument. He contends that this method of playing is supported by microscopic wear patterns, the absence of a fipple or blowhole, and the well-rounded end aperture.
In modern history, the cornett has been considered by musical historians to be a development of the medieval horn, such as a cow's horn. Francis Galpin believed the horns preceding the cornett to be goat horns.
Plain horns in the shape of animal horns have been found in medieval European art as far back as the Utrecht Psalter in the 9th century. However, horns with fingerholes also began appearing in manuscript miniatures in the 10th century. By the 12th century, these were being carved with a six sided or 8 sided exterior. In the 11th century, some of the fingerhole horns began to be made longer and thinner, beginning to take on the appearance of the cornett.
The French coradoiz, rendered now as cor à doigts, meant "fingerhole horn", was seen in the 13th to 15th centuries.
The earliest cowhorn instruments were played with one hand covering four or fewer fingerholes and the other stopping the bell to create additional tones, much like on a French horn. In Northern Europe, these horns, referred to in Scandinavian languages as , were made from natural animal horns.
The name cornet was printed in English in the Morte d'Arthure, completed by Sir Thomas Mallory about 1470.
The cornett in its current form was developed by about 1500, as an improvement over earlier designs of fingerhole horns.
That was the path that led to the curved cornetts; another way led to the straight cornetts. In central Europe, cornetts were made from wood turned on a lathe; the fusion of these two instrument-building traditions as the cornett advanced in melodic capability explains the coexistence of the straight and curved cornetts, with the form of the latter most likely being a skeuomorphic trait derived from animal horns.
Prominent cornettists today include Roland Wilson (ensemble Musica Fiata), Jean Tubéry (La Fenice), Arno Paduch (Johann Rosenmüller Ensemble), and Bruce Dickey (Concerto Palatino).
Giovanni Bassano was a virtuoso early player of the cornett, and Giovanni Gabrieli wrote much of his polychoral, with Bassano playing it. Heinrich Schütz also used the instrument extensively, especially in his earlier work; he had studied in Venice with Gabrieli and was likely acquainted with Bassano's playing.
The use of the instrument had declined by 1700, although the instrument was still common in Europe until the late 18th century. Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann and their German contemporaries used both the cornett and cornettino in cantatas to play in unison with the soprano voices of the choir. Occasionally, these composers allocated a solo part to the cornetto (see Bach's cantata O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, BWV 118). Alessandro Scarlatti used the cornetto or pairs of cornetts in a number of his operas. Johann Joseph Fux used a pair of mute cornetts in a Requiem.
It was scored for by Gluck, in his opera Orfeo ed Euridice (he suggested the soprano trombone as an alternative) and features in the TV theme music Testament by Nigel Hess, released in 1983.
The cornett was chosen to play colla parte (in which instrumentalists play the same notes as the vocal part) in works by Bach. These include Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 (paired with trombones) and Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende, BWV 28 (paired with trombones).Klaus Hofmann (2007), Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende /Praise God! Now the Year Draws to a Close, BWV 28 (pp. 6–7), Bach Cantatas Website
Public performances where the cornett might be played included the alta capella and the Collegium Musicum.
Historically, two cornetts were frequently used in consort with three , often to double a church choir, into the 18th century. This was particularly popular in Venice churches such as the Basilica San Marco, where extensive instrumental accompaniment was encouraged, particularly in use with antiphonal choirs.
Cornetts are made with a mouthpiece, similar to that on brass instruments, but very small. Unlike the brass mouthpieces, players don't press the instrument to the center of their mouths, as on a trumpet. Rather the technique to produce sound is to hold the instrument to the side of the mouth, where the player's lips are thinner. Players stretch their lips to tighten them, with help from cheek muscles.
The technique is not unique to cornets, but has also been used for the traditional animal-horn horns, such as the shofur and Slovak shepherd's horn, as well as for folk horns such as the Russian rozhok.
Girolamo dalla Casa wrote about how the coronet should sound when played, and in doing so revealed other ways it could sound as well. He felt that the instrument was meant to imitate the human voice, saying, "The cornetto is the most excellent of the wind instruments since it imitates the human voice better than the other instruments." He warned that improperly played, it would sound "horn-like or muted."
To play it properly, he said that player's must focus on the tone (with lips not spread apart and loose, or too tight and shrill). He felt tonguing was important to the sound, with energy but not too aggressive. Finally he felt that divisions or diminutions should be used, but sparingly and well. He said that cornettists should focus on making their playing sound like the human voice.
Besides tonguing, books taught students to improvise. Students learning cornet music were encouraged to play in the "diminuative", looking at sheet music and adapting it by creating runs of fast notes to replace long slow notes in written works.
The book ( Il Vero Modo Di Diminuir, 1584) by cornett virtoso Girolamo Dalla Casa focused on tone, tonguing and divisions to make the cornett sound like the human voice.Dickey, Bruce. 1982. "The Decline of the Cornett: Most Excellent of Wind Instruments". Musick 4, no. 1 (September):23–32. p. 26.
Extant cornetts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Cornett family
Cornetts were built in two styles, curved and straight.
Descant
The cornettino is the descant, or sometimes "soprano" member of the cornett family. In Syntagma Musicum, it was presented as being about long and had a range from E to E in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 18th century that changed to D to D.
Treble
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica defined this instrument using its French name dessus (), and gave its fingered range as A to A, the lowest being one note higher than that of the alto. To play notes below A, players can slacken their embouchure.
Sibyl Marcuse did not name the normal cornett, but gave the treble's range. David Jarratt-Knock counted surviving instruments in museums to arrive at the treble cornett being the most commonly found cornett.
Alto
From the 1619 the scaled drawings in Syntagma Musicum, the instrument was about long.
It was built to start playing a tone lower than the treble and has a fingered range from G to G. With good technique the lowest note is F.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called this the haute-contre or alto cornet. Baines said that the use of this variant for an alto part was "widely speculated."
Tenor
The tenor cornet (Italian: cornone, French: basse de cornetà bouquin, German: Basszink) was the tenor instrument in the cornett family. About long from the Syntagma Musicum drawing, it was "proportionally wider" (bottom compared to top) than the treble and alto were, and that changed the tenor's sound quality to be more bugle-like.
Note: page 503 shows a photo of the bottom cornett, and says it is a tenor cornett.
Bass
There are very few surviving examples of instruments larger than the tenor cornett. One is called hautecontre de cornet à bouquin. The other should be called contrebass de cornet à bouquin according to Marcuse and Baines, and there are only two examples of it, one in the Paris Conservatoire museum and the other in Hamburg.
These were tuned "a pitch or so below the type instrument" or an octave below the cornettino. The Paris instrument is described as having "an octagonal exterior and 4 extension keys." The Hamburg example has 2 extension keys.
Straight cornett
The common treble cornett was also made as a straight cornett (German: gerader Zink, gelber Zink, Italian: cornetto diritto or cornetto bianco) and usually light-colored, as the yellow boxwood was not covered in leather.
It has conical bore and body that does not curve. The specific instrument differs from the mute cornett by having a removable mouthpiece. Surviving instruments in museums are mainly treble with a range of A to A. A few survive as tenor instruments, range C to D.
Mute cornett
A mute cornett (French: cornet muet, German: stiller Zink, Italian: cornetto muto) is a straight cornett with a narrower bore and integrated mouthpiece carved into the end of the instrument's body. The instrument tapers in thickness, until at the top it is about wide. The instruments were mainly treble cornetts, tuned to the same range as the curved treble cornett, G to A. The others found in museums are soprano cornetts, also tuned like curved instruments to E to E.
History
Origins
[[File:Cornets à bouquin1.jpg|thumb|left|16th and 17th century cornetts at the Cité de la Musique, Philharmonie de Paris. From the left, back row:
*cornettino, 17th century
*alto or treble cornet, 17th century
* cornone, tenor cornett or bass de cornet à bouquin, 17th century
* contrebass de cornet à bouquin (bass cornett), 16th century
*tenor cornet, 17th century.]]
Ends and beginnings
The cornett was at the height of its popularity between 1550 and 1650. The instrument had declined by the 18th century. When the instrument was needed in the 19th century, it had gone extinct. Efforts to re-create it were not immediately successful and other instruments have been used in an attempt to replace it in classical music. These include the soprano saxophone, trumpet and oboe. Since the 19th century, the instrument is being made again and materials used for the body have widened to include resins. Recorded music of the instrument can be found.
Music for the cornett
Virtuoso performance
The cornett, among other aerophones, were commonly used for virtuosic musical performances, equivalent to performances by a lead singer or violinist. A relatively large amount of solo music for the cornett (and/or violin) survives.
Popular performance
Music books allowed non-professional musicians to learn instruments and play together. Such books included music theory, how to read sheet music, and instructions for how to reach notes on instruments. Professional musicians performed in public spaces and as part of official pomp before the country's residents. Images of heaven reflected a musicality that showed heavenly orchestras performing before God, and instruments were brought into churches.
, flute, mandörgen or gittern, fiddle or rebec, shawm, harp, slide trumpet or clarion trumpet, cornett, clavichord.]]
Liturgical performance
Like the serpent, another fingerhole horn that was paired with it, the cornett was used to reinforce the human voice, accompanying choral music. The cornett was deemed to be similar to the voice of a boy soprano, a part found in English liturgical music which the cornett accompanied. Not only English, for Mersenne speaks of the cornett being "heard with the choir voices in the cathedrals or chapels."
Playing the cornett
The cornett's pitches are controlled using a combination of the player's lips and fingerholes. The lips change pitch through different tensions. The fingerholes alter the length of the sound column.
Learning to play
Books with cornett instruction included Grund-richtiger Unterricht der Musicalischen Kunst ( Fundamentally correct instruction in the musical arts) by Daniel Speer, 1697 and Museum Musicum Theoretico-Practicum ( Museum of theoretical-practical music) by Joseph Friedrich Bernhard Caspar Majer, 1732. Books written for other instruments were also applicable to the cornett. Among these were Ganassi
dal Fontego ( Opera intitulata Fontegara, 1535) and Bismantova ( Compendio musicale, 1677). These books covered the recorder, but the instructions on "tonguing" with "force and speed" has application to the cornett, which was pictured on the Fontegara title page illustration.
The cornett and historically informed performance
As a result of the recent historically informed performance movement the cornett has been rediscovered, and modern works for the instrument have been written.
Bibliography
External links
Modern performance
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