The cornett (Italian: cornetto, German: Zink) is a lip-reed wind instrument from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods, popular between 1500 and 1650. It was made in various sizes and shapes, but most surviving examples are curved and built in the treble size, measuring 51 to 63 cm (20 to 25 in) in length. These are usually described as being in the key of G. When all finger holes are closed, the cornett plays the note A3, which can be lowered by a whole tone to G by adjusting how the player forms their lips. The name "cornett" comes from the Italian word "cornetto," meaning "small horn."

Musicians used the cornett in performances for both state and religious music, especially to accompany choirs. It also appeared in popular music played by ensembles that performed loudly. British organologist Anthony Baines noted that the cornett "could be sounded as loud as a trumpet and as soft as a recorder, and its tone was similar to the human voice more than any other instrument." It was widely used in Germany, where only professional trumpet guild members were allowed to play trumpets. A quieter version of the cornett, called the mute cornett, was described as "gentle, soft, and sweet."

The cornett should not be confused with the modern cornet, a valved brass instrument with a different origin and development. The English word "cornet" was used to describe the cornett since about 1400. Around 1836, the term "cornet" was applied to the cornet à pistons, the predecessor of the modern cornet. After this, "cornett" became the modern English name for the older instrument.

Construction

Pipes as short as the cornett can play only four or five notes from the harmonic series when all finger holes are closed. These notes are used in the cornett's standard playing range. Other short trumpets, like King Tut's Trumpet, can play only two notes without a modern mouthpiece.

The cornett has traits of both trumpets and woodwind instruments. Like trumpets, it uses a small cup-shaped mouthpiece, where sound is made by the player's lips. Like woodwinds, it has finger holes (and sometimes keys) that change pitch by shortening the air column inside. Pitch can also be adjusted by changing the tightness of the player's lips.

The cornett has six finger holes and one thumb hole on the opposite side, similar to a recorder. These allow the instrument to play a diatonic scale. A few cornetts had seven holes, and some French models lacked a thumb hole. By using cross fingering and adjusting lip tightness, the cornett can play a chromatic scale. A player in 1738 was recorded to play 27 notes and half notes using these techniques. Earlier, Praetorius noted that cornetts could produce 15 notes before advanced methods expanded the range.

The cornett has a conical shape, narrow at the mouthpiece and wider near the bell. The curved treble cornett is made by splitting a piece of wood, such as walnut or boxwood, carving out the inside, and gluing the halves together. The outside is shaped into an octagonal form and wrapped tightly with leather or parchment. Some cornetts were made from a single straight piece of wood, shaped on a lathe, then bent with steam. Finger holes and the thumb hole are then carefully cut into the instrument.

The mouthpiece socket at the narrow end is sometimes reinforced with a brass collar. Ornamental silver or brass pieces may also be added to strengthen the ends, especially in Austrian or German cornetts. The separate cup-shaped mouthpiece is usually made of horn, ivory, or bone, with a thin rim and a shank wrapped in thread for tuning. Because it lacks a seventh finger hole, its lowest note is A3, below middle C. A lower note, G3, can be played by adjusting the lip tightness.

Mute cornetts were often made of boxwood. The top of the instrument is narrow, with a bore about 4 millimeters (0.16 inches) wide. The mouthpiece is cone-shaped, covering 13 millimeters (0.51 inches) across and 9 millimeters (0.35 inches) deep.

Cornett family

Cornetts were made in two styles: curved and straight. Most cornetts have a gradual curve, greater than 90°, a single curve like a comma, or an S-curve. The instrument has a conical bore, and the outside is shaped to have an octagonal cross-section. Curved cornets were traditionally black, with the wood covered in thin black leather. The cornett, like many Renaissance and Baroque instruments, was made in a family of sizes. Four sizes that still exist are the soprano (cornettino), the treble or curved cornett, the alto, the tenor or lizard, and the rare bass cornett, which was replaced by the serpent in the 17th century.

The cornettino is the smallest, or sometimes called "soprano," member of the cornett family. In Syntagma Musicum, it was described as about 45 centimeters (18 inches) long and had a range from E4 to E6 in the 16th and 17th centuries. By the 18th century, this range changed to D4 to D6.

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica described this instrument using its French name dessus (meaning "top") and stated its fingered range was A3 to A5, one note higher than the alto. To play notes below A3, players can loosen their embouchure. Sibyl Marcuse did not name the normal cornett but described the treble's range. David Jarratt-Knock counted surviving instruments in museums and found that the treble cornett was the most commonly found. From the 1619 scaled drawings in Syntagma Musicum, a variant of the treble is called the alto. This instrument was about 2 feet (0.61 meters) long. It was built to start playing a tone lower than the treble and had a fingered range from G3 to G5. With good technique, the lowest note was F3. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called this the haute-contre or alto cornet. Baines noted that the use of this variant for an alto part was "widely speculated."

The tenor cornett (Italian: cornone, French: basse de cornetà bouquin, German: Basszink) was the tenor instrument in the cornett family. According to Syntagma Musicum, it was about 3.5 feet (1.1 meters) long and was "proportionally wider" (bottom compared to top) than the treble and alto, which changed the tenor's sound to be more bugle-like.

Although the French and German names suggest it was a bass instrument, organologists Sibyl Marcuse and Anthony Baines classified it as a tenor. They noted 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 C3 to D5. Even though tenor and bass instruments were created for the family, they came later in the instrument's development, perhaps as long as 50 years after the cornett became mainstream. The instrument was often paired with other instruments, especially trombones, to play lower ranges.

Very few examples of instruments larger than the tenor cornett survive. One is called hautecontre de cornet à bouquin. Another, called contrebass de cornet à bouquin by Marcuse and Baines, has only two surviving examples: 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.

• Ivory cornetto in A, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Highly decorated cornett and mouthpiece, cornetto in A, mouthpiece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Curved cornet. Lines of the octagonal body are visible.
• Contrebass de cornet à bouquin, Paris Conservatoire Museum.
• Curved cornetts from the Cité de la Musique, Philharmonie de Paris. Black cornets (wood covered with leather or black parchment) and ivory cornets.
• Possible tenor cornetts, sometimes called lizards. From the Cité de la Musique, Philharmonie de Paris.

The common treble cornett was also made as a straight cornett (German: gerader Zink, gelber Zink, Italian: cornetto diritto or cornetto bianco) and was usually light-colored, as the yellow boxwood was not covered in leather. It has a conical bore and a 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 A3 to A5. A few survive as tenor instruments, with a range of C3 to D5.

A mute cornett (French: cornet muet, German: stiller Zink, Italian: cornetto muto) is a straight cornett with a narrower bore and an integrated mouthpiece carved into the end of the instrument's body. The instrument tapers in thickness, becoming about 1.3 centimeters (0.51 inches) wide at the top. The instruments were mainly treble cornetts, tuned to the same range as the curved treble cornett, G3 to A5. Others found in museums are soprano cornetts, also tuned like curved instruments to E4 to E6.

This instrument's name reflects its sound. Its "gentle, soft, and sweet" tone differs from other cornetts because of its mouthpiece and can be used in a group of viols or recorders. The mouthpiece is similar to that in a French horn; instead of being a cup like other cornetts, it is a cone, about 9 millimeters (0.35 inches) deep. Inside, it transitions smoothly from the cone to the instrumental bore without "sharpness." On the outside, there is no 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 a thumb hole could have produced A3 to F5. The extra plate would make it G3 to F5, with the base covered F3 to F5.

• 1623 identified as a cornett. Since the mouthpiece is carved into the body, this would be a mute cornet. However, this example has a lip at the mouthpiece.

History

Aurignacian pipes, made with four finger holes 26,000–40,000 years ago from bird wing bones or mammoth ivory, were long thought to be flutes. Found in Vogelherdhöhle and other caves in the Swabian Jura, Germany, they are the oldest musical instruments discovered so far. British music archaeologist Graeme Lawson studied a replica of one of these pipes and found that playing it like a flute produces a faint, whispery sound. However, when played as an end-blown lip reed instrument, it clearly produces the first five notes of the diatonic series. He says this method of playing is supported by microscopic wear patterns, the lack of a fipple or blowhole, and the rounded end of the instrument.

In medieval times, the cornett was considered a development of the medieval horn, such as a cow's horn. Francis Galpin believed the horns that came before the cornett were made from goat horns.

Plain horns shaped like animal horns appeared in medieval European art as early as the 9th century, as seen in the Utrecht Psalter. By the 10th century, horns with fingerholes began to appear in drawings. By the 12th century, these horns were carved with six or eight sides. In the 11th century, some fingerhole horns became longer and thinner, starting to resemble the cornett.

The French coradoiz, now called cor à doigts, meant "fingerhole horn" and was used from the 13th to 15th centuries.

The earliest cowhorn instruments were played by covering four or fewer fingerholes with one hand and using the other hand to block the bell, creating more tones, similar to how a French horn is played. In Northern Europe, these horns, called bukkehorns in Scandinavian languages, were made from natural animal horns.

The word "cornet" first appeared in English in the book Morte d'Arthure, written by Sir Thomas Mallory around 1470.

The cornett in its modern form was developed around 1500 as an improvement over earlier fingerhole horns.

Two paths led to different types of cornetts: curved and straight. In central Europe, cornetts were made from wood turned on a lathe. The combination of these two building methods, as the cornett improved in its ability to play melodies, explains why both straight and curved cornetts existed. The curved design likely imitated the shape of animal horns.

The cornett was most popular between 1550 and 1650. By the 18th century, it had declined in use. When it was needed again in the 19th century, it had already become extinct. Attempts to recreate it were not immediately successful, and other instruments, such as the soprano saxophone, trumpet, and oboe, were used instead in classical music. Since the 19th century, the cornett has been made again, and materials like resins are now used for its body. Recordings of the cornett are available today.

Today, prominent cornett players include Roland Wilson (ensemble Musica Fiata), Jean Tubéry (La Fenice), Arno Paduch (Johann Rosenmüller Ensemble), and Bruce Dickey (Concerto Palatino).

• Page from Sebastian Virdung’s 1511 book Musica Getutscht und Ausgezogen. Top left corner: a curved cornett labeled Zincken. Below it is a straight cornett, also labeled Zincken. Top right corner: a Gemshorn.
• Cornett and shawms from Martin Agricola’s book Musica instrumentalis deudsch, published in 1529. From left: straight cornett, three-hole pipe, bombard, shawm.
• 1620 Cornetts, by number: 5 tenor cornett, 6 choral zink, 7 cornettino, 8 "Gerader" zink, 9 mute cornett.
• 1620 Right page: 3 mute cornetts, including one with a key.

Music for the cornett

The cornett, along with other wind instruments, was often used in skilled musical performances, similar to the role of a lead singer or violinist. Many solo pieces for the cornett (and sometimes the violin) have survived over time.

Giovanni Bassano was a skilled early player of the cornett. Giovanni Gabrieli wrote many complex choral works that included the cornett, with Bassano performing them. Heinrich Schütz also used the cornett often, especially in his earlier compositions. Schütz studied in Venice with Gabrieli and likely heard Bassano play.

By the year 1700, the use of the cornett had become less common. However, it remained popular in Europe until the late 1700s. Composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann used the cornett and cornettino in their cantatas to play together with the soprano voices of choirs. Sometimes, these composers gave the cornett a solo part, as seen in Bach’s cantata O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, BWV 118. Alessandro Scarlatti used the cornett or pairs of cornetts in several of his operas. Johann Joseph Fux included two mute cornetts in a Requiem.

The cornett was used in the opera Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck (he suggested a soprano trombone as an alternative). It also appears in the TV theme music Testament by Nigel Hess, released in 1983.

The cornett was used to play colla parte, where instrumentalists played the same notes as the vocal parts. This was done in works by Bach, such as Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 (paired with trombones) and Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende, BWV 28 (paired with trombones).

Music books helped amateur musicians learn to play instruments and read sheet music. These books included instructions on how to play notes and basic music theory. Professional musicians performed in public spaces and during official events. Religious art often showed heavenly orchestras playing music before God, and instruments were used in churches.

Public performances where the cornett might be played included events like the alta capella and the Collegium Musicum.

• 1732 Cornett fingering chart, Museum Musicum Theoretico-Practicum
• Cornett finger chart from Grund-richtiger Unterricht der Musicalischen Kunst by Daniel Speer, 1697
• Art from Opera intitulata Fontegara showing curved and straight cornetts
• Cornetts, sackbuts, and shawms at the coronation of Louis XIV
• 1590, Collegium Musicum, Lauingen, Germany: viol, flute, mandörgen or gittern, fiddle or rebec, shawm, harp, slide trumpet or clarion trumpet, cornett, clavichord
• Religious celebration in Heaven

Like the serpent, another instrument with finger holes that was often used with it, the cornett helped support the human voice in choral music. The cornett was considered to sound like the voice of a boy soprano, a part found in English church music that the cornett accompanied. This was not limited to England, as Mersenne noted the cornett being "heard with the choir voices in the cathedrals or chapels."

Historically, two cornetts were often used with three sackbuts, especially in church choirs, up to the 18th century. This was common in Venetian churches like the Basilica San Marco, where instrumental music was encouraged, especially with antiphonal choirs.

Playing the cornett

The cornett's notes are controlled by the player's lips and fingerholes. The lips change the pitch by adjusting how tight they are. The fingerholes change the length of the path the sound travels inside the instrument.

Cornetts have a small mouthpiece, similar to those on brass instruments. Unlike brass instruments, players do not press the cornett to the center of their mouths. Instead, they hold it to the side, where their lips are thinner. To make sound, players stretch their lips to tighten them, using their cheek muscles for support.

This technique is not only used for cornetts. It has also been used for traditional animal-horn instruments, such as the shofar and Slovak shepherd's horn, as well as for folk horns like the Russian rozhok.

Girolamo dalla Casa wrote about how the cornetto should sound. He said the instrument was meant to imitate the human voice. He believed the cornetto was the best wind instrument because it could copy the human voice better than others. He warned that if played incorrectly, the cornetto might sound "horn-like or muted."

To play the cornetto properly, players must focus on tone. Their lips should not be too loose or too tight. Tonguing, or the way notes are started, was also important. Players should use energy but not be too forceful. Diversions, or short, fast notes, should be used carefully. Girolamo dalla Casa believed cornettists should aim to make their playing sound like the human voice.

Books about cornett instruction include Grund-richtiger Unterricht der Musicalischen Kunst (1697) by Daniel Speer and Museum Musicum Theoretico-Practicum (1732) by Joseph Friedrich Bernhard Caspar Majer. Books for other instruments were also useful for cornett players. These included Opera intitulata Fontegara (1535) by Ganassi dal Fontego and Compendio musicale (1677) by Bismantova. These books covered the recorder, but instructions about "tonguing" with "force and speed" could also be used for the cornetto. The cornetto was shown on the cover of Fontegara.

Besides tonguing, books taught students to improvise. Cornett students were encouraged to play in the "diminuative" style. This meant looking at sheet music and changing long, slow notes into fast runs of notes.

The book Il Vero Modo Di Diminuir (1584) by Girolamo Dalla Casa focused on tone, tonguing, and divisions to help the cornetto sound like the human voice.

The cornett and historically informed performance

Because of a movement that focuses on how music was played in the past, the cornett has been discovered again. Composers have created new music for the instrument.