Books › A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891 › scan 172
Scan 172
A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891
12 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. Printed page 152. See the scan on archive.org.
1IX.
3CLASS—INSTRUMENTS WITH CUP-SHAPED MOUTHPIECES.
5FAMILY: Length varied by means of lateral holes.
7INSTRUMENTS sounded by means of cup-shaped mouthpieces, and whose length is varied by means of lateral holes, can be traced back to a very remote period. The principle involved consists in connecting certain intervals of the harmonic series formed by the open tube, chromatically or otherwise, by means of the successive opening of a number of lateral holes. Whether instruments thus constructed were known to the Romans it is impossible to say, but it appears at all events probable. Their invention is decidedly of European origin, for no trace of them can be found in countries further East, or in India or China.
9About the twelfth century the cornetto or Zinck was in use, and an instrument, presumably the same, appears in a MS. now in the National Library at Madrid (Cantigas de Santa Maria). Some few centuries later, when wind bands had assumed a definite design, Zinken or cornetti became important instruments. Praetorius (Syntagma, 1618) mentions that they were, in shape, both straight and curved. There were, he tells us, two kinds of straight cornets. The name cornetto diretto was given to an instrument of which the mouthpiece was detachable, and an instrument in which the mouthpiece was made in the same block of wood was called cornetto muto, by reason of its softer tone. This latter was also known in Germany as the stille zinck.
11There were also cornetti curvi, which differed only in shape from the straight cornetti. They were usually of a coarser and louder quality of tone; and an instrument of this shape, which was often used by town watchmen, received the characteristic name of "Stadtkalb," or "Town Calf"! All these instruments had a compass of 15 notes from a to a", and their compass could be extended upwards even to g"", by means of cross-fingering. The corno, or cornetto torto, called also cornon, formed
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