Three different cornetts: mute cornett, curved cornett and tenor cornett

The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early brass instrument, dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere Baroque art redirects here Please disambiguate such links to Baroque painting, Baroque sculpture, etc It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. Alta capella were town wind bands found throughout continental Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries which typically consisted of Shawms and slide Trumpets It is not to be confused with the trumpet-like instrument cornet. The cornet is a Brass instrument very similar to the Trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape and mellower tone quality

Name

To avoid confusion between this instrument and the more modern cornet (with one t), the cornett is often called by its Italian name, cornetto or cornetto curvo (to distinguish it from the straight cornett). The cornet is a Brass instrument very similar to the Trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape and mellower tone quality Occasionally it is called by its German name, which is zink or krumme Zink (curved spike). The instrument was known as the "cornet à bouquin" in France and the "corneta" in Spain.

Construction

The cornett takes the form of a tube, typically about 60 cm. long, made of ivory, wood, or, in the case of some modern reconstructions of historical instruments, ebony resin, with woodwind-style fingerholes. Ivory is formed from Dentine and constitutes the bulk of the Teeth and Tusks of animals such as the Elephant, Hippopotamus, Wood is hard fibrous lignified structural tissue produced as secondary Xylem in the stems of Woody plants notably trees but also shrubs Types of woodwind instruments See also List of woodwind instruments Single-reed instruments use a reed, which is a thin cut Usually the cornett is octagonal in cross-section, and it is wrapped in leather or parchment, with the fingerholes penetrating this cover. Leather is a material created through the Tanning of hides and Skins of Animals primarily Cattlehide The Tanning process Parchment is a thin material made from Calfskin, Sheepskin or goatskin. The cornett is slightly curved, normally to the right, so that the player's left hand, playing the upper holes, and the player's right hand, playing the lower holes, can more comfortably reach their proper locations. At the top of the cornett there is a small mouthpiece of the kind used in brass instruments; that is, the lips vibrate to produce sound. On Brass instruments the mouthpiece is the part of the instrument which is placed upon the player's Lips The purpose of the mouthpiece is a Resonator, which A brass instrument is a Musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular Resonator.

The cornett is thus an unusual specimen among wind instruments, with a body constructed like a woodwind but its mouthpiece (and thus mechanism of tone production) being that of a brass instrument. Scholars evidently agree that the latter criterion is more important, and so the cornett should be counted as brass. In particular, the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification places it alongside instruments such as the trumpet. Hornbostel-Sachs (or Sachs-Hornbostel) is a system of Musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs At various times and in various different cultures various schemes of Musical instrument classification have been used

Modern cornett players tend to use a smaller mouthpiece, whereas those needing to make a compromise—often with the need to go on playing modern brass instruments—may use a much larger mouthpiece, sometimes a trumpet mouthpiece turned down on a lathe so that only the cup and a minimal stub which fits the cornett's mouthpiece receiver are left. Turning is the process whereby a centre lathe is used to produce "solids of revolution" A lathe (ˈleɪð is a Machine tool which spins a block of material to perform various operations such as Cutting, Sanding, Knurling The larger mouthpiece gives a less incisive tone with less "edge" to the sound.

Music for the cornett

Historically, the cornett was frequently used in consort with sackbuts (2 cornetts, 3 sackbuts), often to double a church choir. The Sackbut (var Sacbutt Sackbutt Sagbutt a Brass instrument from the Renaissance and Baroque Eras is the ancestor of the modern Trombone This was particularly popular in Venetian churches such as the Basilica San Marco, where extensive instrumental accompaniment was encouraged, particularly in use with antiphonal choirs. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Saint Mark's Basilica ( Italian: Basilica di San Marco a Venezia) the Cathedral of Venice, is the most famous of Giovanni Bassano was an example of a virtuoso early player of the cornett, and Giovanni Gabrieli wrote much of his resplendent polychoral music with him in mind. Giovanni Bassano (c 1558 – summer 1617? was an Italian Venetian School composer and Cornettist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras Giovanni Gabrieli (c 1554/1557 &ndash August 12 1612 was an Italian Composer and organist. The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate Choirs singing in alternation Heinrich Schütz also used the instrument extensively, especially in his earlier work; he had studied in Venice with Gabrieli and was acquainted with Bassano's playing. Heinrich Schütz (October 8 ( JC) 1585 Köstritz - November 6 1672 Dresden) was a German Composer and organist, generally regarded

The cornett was, like almost all Renaissance and Baroque instruments, made in a complete family; the different sizes being the high cornettino, the cornett (or curved cornett), the tenor cornett (or lizard) and the rare bass cornett (the serpent was preferred to the bass cornett). The cornettino was the descant instrument of the Cornetto family The tenor cornett or lizard was a common musical instrument in the Renaissance and Baroque periods The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early wind instrument dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods A serpent is a bass Wind instrument, descended from the Cornett, and a distant ancestor of the Tuba, with a mouthpiece like a Brass Other versions include the mute cornett, which is a straight narrow-bore instrument with integrated mouthpiece, quiet enough to be used in a consort of viols or even recorders.

The cornett was also used as a virtuoso solo instrument, and a relatively large amount of solo music for the cornetto (and/or violin) survives. 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. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" Georg Philipp Telemann (March 14 1681 &ndash June 25 1767 was a German Baroque music Composer, born in Magdeburg. Occasionally, these composers allocated a solo part to the cornetto (see Bach's cantata BWV 118). Alessandro Scarlatti used the cornetto or pairs of cornetti in a number of his operas. Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2 1660 &ndash October 24 1725 was an Italian Baroque Composer especially famous for his Operas and chamber Cantatas Johann Joseph Fux used a pair of mute cornetts in a Requiem. Johann Joseph Fux ( pronounced) (1660 &ndash 13 February 1741 was an Austrian composer music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era It was last scored for by Gluck, in his opera Orfeo ed Euridice (he suggested the soprano trombone as an alternative). Orfeo ed Euridice (French version Orphée et Eurydice; English translation Orpheus and Eurydice) is an Opera composed by Christoph Willibald The trombone is a Musical instrument in the brass family Like all brass instruments it is a lip-reed Aerophone: sound is produced when the player’s

Playing the cornett

The cornett is generally agreed to be a difficult instrument to play—it requires a lot of practice. It embodies a design that survives in no modern instrument; that is, the main tube has only the length of a typical woodwind, but the mouthpiece is of the brass type, relying on a combination of the player's lips and the alteration of the length of the sound column via the opening and closing of the finger holes to alter the pitch of the musical sound. Most modern brass instruments are considerably longer than the cornett, which permits the use of harmonics, the sound being altered by slides or valves to control the pitch. In Acoustics and Telecommunication, the harmonic of a Wave is a component Frequency of the signal that is an Integer

The Baroque era was relatively tolerant of bright or extroverted tonal quality, as the surviving organs of the time attest. Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. The organ (from Greek όργανον – organon "organ instrument tool" is a Keyboard instrument of one or more divisions each Thus the Baroque theorist Marin Mersenne described the sound of the cornett as "a ray of sunshine piercing the shadows". Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne ( September 8, 1588 &ndash September 1, 1648) was Yet there is also evidence that the cornett was sometimes badly played, although it also seems to have been played much more expertly than any other woodwind instrument. Its upper register sounded somewhat like a trumpet or modern cornet, the lower register resembling the sackbutts that often accompanied it, whereas the middle register gave an indistinct wailing sound that was not attractive when played in isolation. Cornett intonation also tended to be fluid, which enabled it to be played perfectly in tune in a range of tonalities and temperaments.

As a result of its design, the cornett requires a specialized embouchure which is, initially, very tiring to play for any length of time. The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the Mouthpiece of a Wind instrument. Cornetts were often replaced by violins in consort music and cornetts could be similarly used as a substitutes for violins in consort music and sacred music. The cornett and the violin were considered interchangeable; and a good cornettist doubled between either cornetti and trumpets or cornetti and recorders.

Cornetts were used to reinforce the human voice in choirs, and many commentators suggested that the sound of a well played cornett, heard at a distance, could be mistaken for a "choice castrato". A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, or Contralto voice produced either by Castration The place of the cornett was never really filled by any other instrument and it wasn't until the second half of the 20th century that the cornett revival gave music lovers a chance to hear the sound of this instrument again in its proper context.

The cornett and authentic performance

As a result of the recent early music renaissance, the cornett has been rediscovered, and as before attracts the finest players. Early music is commonly defined as European classical music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque. In many pieces (particularly those of early to mid Baroque composers such as Claudio Monteverdi, Giovanni Gabrieli, Francesco Cavalli, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Battista Riccio, Dario Castello, Antonio Bertali, Pavel Josef Vejvanovský, Jan Křtitel Tolar, Michael Praetorius, Johann Hermann Schein, Samuel Scheidt, Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle, Johann Andreas Pachelbel, Giovanni Felice Sances, Johann Joseph Fux, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Andreas Hofer, Alessandro Stradella, Matthew Locke, John Adson and Heinrich Schütz) the cornett is indispensable in performance, and the music suffers if other instruments substitute for them. Giovanni Gabrieli (c 1554/1557 &ndash August 12 1612 was an Italian Composer and organist. Francesco Cavalli ( February 14 1602 &ndash January 14 1676) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque Girolamo Frescobaldi (baptized mid-September 1583 – March 1 1643 was an Italian musician one of the most important Composers of keyboard music in the late Dario Castello (c 1590 &ndash c 1658 (Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era Volume XXIII was an Italian composer and instrumentalist ( Cornetto) from Antonio Bertali (?1603/1604 &ndash April 17, 1669) was an Italian Composer and Violinist of the Baroque era Pavel Josef Vejvanovský ( b Hukvaldy, c 1633/39 d Kroměříž, 1693 - buried 24 September) Czech composer and Trumpeter Jan Křtitel Tolar Baptista Dolar ( fl Bohemia / Moravia, late 17th century - composer and contemporary of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Michael Praetorius (probably February 15 1571 &ndash February 15 1621 was a German Composer, organist, and writer about Music. Johann Hermann Schein (January 20 1586 &ndash November 19 1630 was a German composer of the early Baroque era Samuel Scheidt (baptized November 3 1587 &ndash March 24 1654 was a German Composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era Sebastian Knüpfer ( September 6, 1644 – Asch, Bavaria (now Aš, Czech Republic) - October 10, 1676 – Johann Joseph Fux ( pronounced) (1660 &ndash 13 February 1741 was an Austrian composer music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era Johann Heinrich von Schmelzer (1623 &ndash March 20 1680) was an Austrian Composer and Violinist of the baroque era Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (August 12 1644 &ndash May 3 1704 was a Bohemian Austrian Composer and Violinist. Andreas Hofer ( Reichenhall, 1629 - Salzburg, 1684 was an Austrian composer Alessandro Stradella ( 3 April, 1639 - February 25, 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque. Matthew Locke is a name shared by Matthew Locke (composer Matthew Locke (U John Adson (c 1587 - June 29, 1640) was an English Musician and Composer. Heinrich Schütz (October 8 ( JC) 1585 Köstritz - November 6 1672 Dresden) was a German Composer and organist, generally regarded The violin was the usual substitute for the cornetto in historical music. The recorder, modern B-flat trumpet, oboe, and soprano saxophone have all been used as substitutes for the cornetto in modern performances.

External links

• A page about the cornett
• Christopher Monk Instruments, one of the more well-known modern makers of cornetts
• The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, a performance group that makes use of the cornett
• A possibility to build your own curved cornett

See also

• Cornettino
• Tenor cornett