The cornet is a brass instrument that is similar to the trumpet. It is different from the trumpet because it has a tapered shape, is more compact, and has a softer and richer sound. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B♭. There is also a soprano cornet in E♭, as well as cornets in A and C. These are not related to the Renaissance and early Baroque cornett.
History
The cornet was created by adding valves to the posthorn in the 1820s. At first, it used Stölzel valves, but by the 1830s, makers in Paris began using improved Périnet piston valves. Cornets first appeared as separate parts in 19th-century French music compositions.
The development of the cornet depended on improvements to piston valves by Silesian horn players Friedrich Blühmel (or Blümel) and Heinrich Stölzel in the early 1800s. These two instrument makers invented valves almost at the same time, though Blühmel is likely the original inventor, while Stölzel made the first practical instrument. They were granted a patent together for ten years. In 1838, François Périnet received a patent for a better valve, which became the standard for modern brass instruments. The first famous cornet player was Jean-Baptiste Arban, who studied the cornet and published a book called La grande méthode complète de cornet à piston et de saxhorn, often called the Arban method, in 1864. Until the early 1900s, trumpets and cornets were both used in musical groups. Symphonic music often had separate parts for each instrument. As instrument makers improved both instruments, they began to look and sound similar. Today, cornets are used in brass bands, concert bands, and in orchestral music that needs a softer sound.
The name "cornet" comes from the French word corne, meaning "horn," which is from the Latin word cornu. Instruments in the Zink family, like serpents, are sometimes called "cornetto" or "cornett" in English to avoid confusion with the valved cornet. The 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica called serpents "old wooden cornets." The Roman/Etruscan cornu (or "horn") is the language ancestor of these instruments. It was an early version of the posthorn and was used like a bugle to give signals on battlefields.
Relationship to trumpet
The cornet's valves made it easier to play different notes across the instrument's range. Trumpets took longer to use this new valve technology. Because of this, composers often wrote different parts for trumpets and cornets for over 100 years. The trumpet would play fanfare-like passages, while the cornet played more melodic ones. The modern trumpet has valves that allow it to play the same notes and fingerings as the cornet.
Cornets and trumpets made in a given key (usually the key of B♭) play at the same pitch, and the technique for playing the instruments is nearly identical. However, cornets and trumpets are not entirely interchangeable, as they differ in timbre. Also available, but usually seen only in the brass band, is an E♭ soprano model, pitched a fourth above the standard B♭.
Unlike the trumpet, which has a cylindrical bore up to the bell section, the tubing of the cornet has a mostly conical bore, starting very narrow at the mouthpiece and gradually widening towards the bell. Cornets following the 1913 patent of E. A. Couturier can have a continuously conical bore. This shape is primarily responsible for the instrument's characteristic warm, mellow tone, which can be distinguished from the more penetrating sound of the trumpet. The conical bore of the cornet also makes it more agile than the trumpet when playing fast passages, but correct pitching is often less assured. The cornet is often preferred for young beginners as it is easier to hold, with its center of gravity much closer to the player.
The cornet mouthpiece has a shorter and narrower shank than that of a trumpet, so it can fit the cornet's smaller mouthpiece receiver. The cup size is often deeper than that of a trumpet mouthpiece.
One variety is the short-model traditional cornet, also known as a "Shepherd's Crook" shaped model. These are most often large-bore instruments with a rich mellow sound. There is also a long-model, or "American-wrap" cornet, often with a smaller bore and a brighter sound, which is produced in a variety of different tubing wraps and is closer to a trumpet in appearance. The Shepherd's Crook model is preferred by cornet traditionalists. The long-model cornet is generally used in concert bands in the United States and has found little following in British-style brass and concert bands.
A third, and relatively rare variety—distinct from the "American-wrap" cornet—is the "long cornet," which was produced in the mid-20th century by C. G. Conn and F. E. Olds and is visually nearly indistinguishable from a trumpet, except that it has a receiver fashioned to accept cornet mouthpieces.
The echo cornet has been called an obsolete variant. It has a mute chamber (or echo chamber) mounted to the side, acting as a second bell when the fourth valve is pressed. The second bell has a sound similar to that of a Harmon mute and is typically used to play echo phrases, whereupon the player imitates the sound from the primary bell using the echo chamber.
Playing technique
The cornet, like the trumpet and other modern brass wind instruments, creates sound when the player vibrates their lips in the mouthpiece. This action forms a column of air inside the instrument's tubing that vibrates. The speed of this vibration can be changed by adjusting the tightness of the lips, the shape of the mouth (called embouchure), and the position of the tongue, which affects the shape of the mouth and the airflow. Additionally, pressing one or more valves lengthens the air column, which lowers the pitch. Techniques such as double and triple tonguing can also be used.
Without valves, the cornet could only play a limited set of notes known as a harmonic series, similar to the bugle and other natural brass instruments. These notes are spaced far apart, making it difficult to play most musical scales or chromatic notes, except in the very high range. Valves allow the air column's length to be adjusted, giving the cornet the ability to play a full range of notes.
Ensembles with cornets
British brass bands are made up of brass instruments and a percussion section. The cornet is the main melodic instrument in these groups; trumpets are not used. A typical ensemble has about thirty musicians, including nine B♭ cornets and one E♭ cornet (soprano cornet). In the UK, companies like Besson and Boosey & Hawkes made instruments for brass bands. In the United States, 19th-century manufacturers such as Graves and Company, Hall and Quinby, E. G. Wright, and the Boston Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company produced instruments for this type of group.
The cornet is part of the British-style concert band. Early American concert band pieces, especially those written or adapted before 1960, often have separate parts for trumpets and cornets. However, later American pieces rarely include cornet parts, and trumpets now replace them. This change comes from the British concert band’s background in military bands, where the cornet is always the highest brass instrument. British concert bands usually have four to six B♭ cornets, but no E♭ instruments, as the E♭ clarinet takes that role.
Fanfareorkesten, or fanfare orchestras, are found only in the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France, and Lithuania. These groups use the full saxhorn family of instruments. The standard setup includes both cornets and trumpets, but in recent years, trumpets have mostly replaced cornets.
In old-style jazz bands, the cornet was preferred over the trumpet. However, from the swing era onward, trumpets replaced cornets because they are louder and have a sharper sound. Similarly, cornets were gradually removed from big bands due to a growing preference for louder and more aggressive instruments, especially after bebop became popular after World War II.
Jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden played the cornet, and Louis Armstrong began his career on the instrument. His switch to the trumpet is often seen as the start of the trumpet’s dominance in jazz. Cornetists like Bubber Miley and Rex Stewart helped shape the early sound of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Other important jazz cornet players include Freddie Keppard, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, Ruby Braff, Bobby Hackett, and Nat Adderley. Notable cornet performances by musicians usually associated with the trumpet include Freddie Hubbard’s solo on Empyrean Isles by Herbie Hancock and Don Cherry’s solo on The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman. The band Tuba Skinny is led by cornetist Shaye Cohn.
Soon after its invention, the cornet was added to the symphony orchestra to support trumpets. The cornet’s valves allowed it to play all the notes in a scale, unlike trumpets, which were limited to natural notes. Its sound also helped blend the horn and trumpet sections. Hector Berlioz was the first major composer to use cornets in this way. His works often include both trumpets and cornets, with cornets playing more melodic parts. In his Symphonie fantastique (1830), he added a counter-melody for a solo cornet in the second movement (Un Bal).
Cornets remained in use, especially in French compositions, even after valve trumpets became common. They blended well with other instruments and were considered better for certain melodies. Tchaikovsky used them effectively in his Capriccio Italien (1880).
From the early 20th century, some composers, like Edward Elgar and Igor Stravinsky, still used both cornets and trumpets for specific musical effects. However, the sounds of the two instruments have become more similar over time, and cornets are now rarely used in ensembles. In the first version of his ballet Petrushka (1911), Stravinsky gave a famous solo to the cornet. In the 1946 version, he removed cornets and assigned the solo to the trumpet.