Throughout the ages the horn has been inextricably linked with hunting, an extra-musical association that coloured its use in music during the Baroque and Classical periods. Early on, the horn was employed in fanfares for hunting scenes in stage works such as Michelangelo Rossi's Erminia sul Giordano (Rome, 1633), Francesco Cavalli's Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo (Venice, 1639) and Jean-Baptiste Lully's La Princesse d'Elide (Versailles, 1664). Though it is not known if the horns used in these works were of the tightly wound helical or the more modern single-coil variety, they had essentially the same range and harmonic-series pitchgamut as the trumpet. This is illustrated in the Sonata da caccia con un Cornuy c. l670, written by an anonymous Bohemian composer for strings and horn in C alto – at the same pitch as the trumpet in C.

A crucial step in the evolution of the horn was its further differentiation from the trumpet (a differentiation that continued throughout the eighteenth century) as its tube length became longer, with a larger hoop and wider bell, resulting in a lower compass and a deeper, more sonorous tone. It was only after this maturation that composers requested the horn regularly in art music. The larger cor de chasse, associated with the mounted Parforce hunt, is generally thought to have appeared in France by 1680 during the reign of Louis XIV, first as a single-coiled horn in C alto, then a double-coiled horn at lower pitches.

This remained the situation with brass instruments in the late eighteenth century (and in some places even in the twentieth). The trombone was the sole exception. Praetorius illustrated both bass and contrabass trombones in Syntagma musicum(1619). However, the latter instrument was seldom used.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century another lip-reed instrument which could play as low as the bass trombone, the bassoon and the cello had appeared. This was the serpent, invented by Edmé Guillaume of Auxerre to accompany plainchant. Its mouthpiece is inserted into a bent brass crook which in turn enters a wooden tube. In a length of some 210 cm. this tube expands from a diameter of 2 cm. to a bell of about 10 cm. Its range of two and a half octaves from C2 was ample for plainchant, the slow tempo of which gave the player time to pitch each note beforehand. The pitch of the serpent tends to be unstable owing to its wide conicity and the position of the six finger holes along its ‘S’-shaped tube which are placed conveniently for the three middle fingers of each hand, rather than in accordance with acoustic requirements. When military bands adopted the serpent in the late eighteenth century three keys were fitted, giving improved Bs, C♯s and F♯s. The serpent militaire was also more robustly constructed than the serpent d'église. At the same time, bassoon-shaped serpents appeared.

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries provided warm ground for the seeds of experimentation in brass instrument technology. Serpents and their latter-day relatives, the bass horns and basson russe, were proof that vented brasses were viable musical instruments. The need for fully chromatic brass increased as performers, instrument makers and audiences felt the need to find instruments that would suit the new music. A distinctly different sort of brass musician produced that music. For example, the training of Anton Weidinger as a guild apprentice serves in sharp contrast to the democratic self-instruction exemplified by the careers of the keyed bugle and ophicleide players that followed him.

Early keyed horns and trumpets

Ferdinand Kölbel and his son-in-law, Hensel, were the earliest documented experimenters with keyed horns, which they called the Amor-Schall. In 1756, they demonstrated two of their instruments for Tsarina Katharina II in St Petersburg. Kölbel's instrument had keys on the bell and on a cross tube. The instrument featured a unique bell in the form of a half sphere. A second half of the sphere with perforations to let the sound out could be attached to this section, and it was the special sound that made the name Amor-Schall appropriate. The instrument had a sound that was, according to one account, ‘a very agreeable blend, from the normal hunting horn, English horn, and the oboe’. The instrument employed a new technique, produced a sound that varied from the mainstream, was difficult to manufacture and attracted few disciples. Horn players preferred the hand-stopping techniques that were already established and widely accepted.

The name ‘cornett’ refers to a family of lip-vibrated finger-hole horns in widespread use from the late fifteenth century to the early nineteenth. Cornetts were made in many forms: they could be either curved or straight, wooden or ivory, covered with leather or left plain, and of either round or octagonal cross-section. However, the dominant form by far, at least from the mid sixteenth century on, was curved, wooden and leather-covered.

The cornett enjoyed a development that was unparalleled both in its rapid ascent and in its subsequent profound decline. No western musical instrument of comparable importance has ever emerged so rapidly from obscurity or plunged into such total eclipse. Though many details of this development remain obscure, the broad sweep of the curve is becoming clear as the modern revival of the cornett, begun in the early 1950s, again focuses interest and scholarship on this instrument, once regarded as, ‘the most excellent of all the wind instruments’.

Early history: ‘Trumpys, taborns and cornettys crye’

The curved form of the cornett, as well as the Latin-derived forms of its name (Latin: cornu; Italian: cornetto; French: cornet à bouquin; English: cornett), clearly link this instrument to an ancestry among the lip-vibrated animal horns widely used since ancient times for signalling. Two important developments were necessary, however, to turn animal horns prepared for blowing, capable of only one or two notes, into musical instruments useful in cultivated music: finger holes had to be added and the bore of the instrument needed to be narrow enough to permit over-blowing.

The late Renaissance (1500–1600)

Trumpeters seem to have enjoyed Imperial protection in the Habsburg empire by the fifteenth century. In 1548, the Imperial Diet of Augsburg decreed that trumpeters and others were allowed to form guilds. The decree was confirmed in 1577, leading to the founding of the Imperial Trumpeters' and Kettledrummers' Guild in 1623.

Three surviving manuscript collections allow an insight into the court trumpeters' military and ceremonial repertoire of the late Renaissance: the notebooks of two German trumpeters at the Danish court, Magnus Thomsen (1596–1609) and Hendrich Lubeck (1598), and a trumpet method, Tutta l'arte della trombetta, compiled in the 1580s and written down in 1614 by the Munich chief court trumpeter, Cesare Bendinelli (c. 1542–1617). All contain exercises, military signals and ensemble pieces.

Monophonic military music to c. 1600

The oldest surviving trumpet signals, codified in Italy during the sixteenth century, were executed in the low register of the trumpet, from the second to the fifth or sixth partial of the harmonic series (C3 to E4 or G4). They were preceded by an introductory ‘toccata’; later a concluding third part was added. Bendinelli remarked that the style of execution should be free, ‘with little regard for the beat’.

Other kinds of monophonic trumpet signals were played at special events such as announcements of university promotions or jury verdicts, or to summon the gentry to table. They were also included in theatre pieces, including many of Shakespeare's plays, where they were called ‘tuckets’ (a word with an obvious etymological connection with ‘toccata’).

The earliest methods of instruction on brass instruments were probably based on imitation; signals and simple ensemble pieces were probably learned by rote. The first documented brotherhood of musicians was the Nicolai-Zechbrüder which was chartered in 1288 in Vienna and functioned until 1782. Five trumpets formed a fraternity in Lucca, also in 1288. The Confrérie de Saint-Julien was founded in 1321 and lasted until 1773. By 1330, musicians' brotherhoods expanded, and thirty-one such organisations met in Tournai to discuss common issues. Not until the written records and apprenticeship indentures of the guilds and Stadtpfeifer become available is there tangible evidence of how instruction actually took place. Members of church or civic ensembles and court musicians are seldom seen in pictures with printed music in front of them. This suggests that the music they were playing was memorised. Keith Polk has described ‘the existence of a tightly interwoven network of contacts which would have connected players and repertory in Glogau, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ferrara, and Florence, and, for that matter with Brussels, Mechelen and Antwerp’. How did they learn their craft? The possession of a highly developed memory and a talent for improvisation, in addition to the timeless prerequisite of a keen ear, were essential to success as a musician in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

Manuscript and printed instruction material survives from the Renaissance. The idiom that brass players followed can be deduced from the works of such writers as Ganassi, Ortiz, Maffei, Dalla Casa, Bassano, Conforti, Bovicelli and Virgiliano. A concise study of the manuals of these writers by Howard Mayor Brown, Embellishing Sixteenth-Century Musky is a good starting point for modern players of early brass instruments, as it provides an overview of sixteenth-century practices. In the seventeenth century, Rognoni continued the discussion of technique and used the model of the human voice as the ideal for wind players to imitate

Early technical developments

The emergence of the brass family as instruments to be used in art music is directly related to their ability to produce sufficient notes in the diatonic scale for melodic accompaniment. This is effected in two ways: either by changing tube length during playing by means of slides so as to fill in the gaps in the lower register, or by increasing tube length to a point where the higher harmonics are available to the player and close enough together that diatonic melodies may be played. Until the higher harmonics could be produced reliably, or the lower harmonics tuned to order, brass instruments were relegated to ceremonial and non-musical roles.

The simplest way of varying tube length is by application of a single slide attached to the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece is held in a set position against the lips while the whole instrument is moved up and down. Several authors cite extensive iconographical and musical evidence for the existence of such an instrument from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and hypothesise on its general dimensions and musical function. Modern reconstructions show that the instrument is at least mechanically and musically feasible. An argument against the existence of an instrument with a single slide has been made, but from the point of view of manufacturing technique it seems more logical that a workable but cumbersome single slide was developed first, and later gave way to an improved double slide as manufacturing techniques improved. Making smooth concentric tubing which would telescope easily enough to allow the use of a single slide was difficult enough in the fourteenth century, without the extra technical demands of making two such tubes work well alongside each other in a double slide.

The dichotomy between the old and the new

The horn had a complex transition from the classical hand-horn to the fully chromatic valved instrument that we know today. The transition was also very gradual and did not follow a logical sequence. This is borne out by the fact that a work as late as Brahms's Horn Trio, Op. 40 for horn, violin and piano (1865), is designed for the hand-horn, while other works of the same period require valves. Another illustration of the co-existence of the valve horn and the hand-horn is demonstrated by the fact that the Paris Conservatoire offered hand-horn classes into the twentieth century. The valve horn class was actually suspended temporarily in 1864. French composers (notably Debussy and Ravel) seemed far more concerned with the minute details of orchestral colour and ‘pointillism’ well into the twentieth century, while the Austro-German composers (even Brahms, who favoured the hand-horn) were much more concerned with structure and motivic coherence; it is, therefore, understandable that French composers and writers showed the most concern over the loss of the range of colours that the hand-horn had to offer. Nineteenth-century music was, however, to be dominated by the Austro-Germans, and the ‘modern’ use of the valves for all notes was to be the way forward. Differences in attitude were, however, to cause problems. David Charlton has pointed out that, ‘By about 1860 [horn] technique was in a transitional and confusing state.’

Virtually every major involvement of the lower social orders with brass instruments in western cultures dates from the nineteenth century. There are exceptions of course; Moravian trombonists were not professional players, and there are instances of horn and trumpet calls being sounded by enlisted military musicians. However, the engagement of masses of ordinary working people with brass instruments, both as players and listeners, starts between 1830 and 1850.

The idea that the brass players who populated Europe from the Middle Ages – alta band players, waits, Stadtpfeifer, court or church musicians, state trumpeters or whatever else they were called – were connected to, or had a causal relationship with, the amateurs who bought valve instruments in the nineteenth century is spurious. To deny the compelling reality that widespread amateur brass playing was new in the nineteenth century, a feature of modernity, is to misunderstand one of the most remarkable sociological shifts to have occurred in the history of music. Almost anyone who, in say 1820, possessed a sophisticated skill on an artmusic instrument and did not make a living at it was, virtually by definition, an aristocrat or a member of the wealthy bourgeoisie. Yet, within a single generation, such skills were commonplace among amateur brass band players across Europe and America. It was a moment of vast importance; it led to changes in the idiom of many brass instruments, and it was one of the ways in which sophisticated music making can genuinely be said to have contributed to social emancipation.

The stage is empty, except for a low stand and a chair. Enter a trombone player, immaculate in white tie. He points his instrument in the air and plays a single loud, high note. He repeats the action, at six-second intervals. At the fifth attempt, no sound comes. Rattled, he becomes more energetic. He has a tin basin, which he holds over the bell of his instrument: occasionally, he sings a pert ‘wa’ and the trombone, the basin acting as lips, mimics him. The notes come faster. The player is frantic, then hysterical, but the harder he works the less sound he makes. Paralysis ensues. The trombonist utters a bewildered ‘WHY?’ and crumples onto the chair. From this position he plays a complex, tormented lament. The sound is continuous; even when inhaling he groans and rattles his basin. The instrument enunciates syllables, sounds are distorted, losing any sense of defined pitch, and, more often than not, the trombonist wails and plays at the same time. The borders between instrument and player, voice and blown sound, speech and the tin lips of the basin, become blurred, and as the last note dies away it is difficult to tell if it is played or sung.

This is not the work of a fringe eccentric: Sequenza V by Luciano Berio (Ex. 11) has an enduring place in the repertoire. Nor is it an improvisation. Its notation is precise: the position of the mute is indicated by a separate stave, the pitches of the sung and played notes are for the most part clearly given, and even the angle of the instrument is shown with arrows and lines. Though the rhythms are indicated by proportion rather than mensuration it is a work as clearly conceived as a Beethoven quartet.

The role of brass instruments in the Middle Ages, especially in the earlier Middle Ages, remains murky. No music survives and the scant remnants of instruments allow only the most fragmentary notions of what the actual structure and shapes of trumpets and horns of the time might have been. Literary and theoretical sources seldom mention brass instruments, and few pictures illustrate them. Only towards the end of the medieval era do the sources, especially pay records and iconography, provide more ample evidence.

What is clear, however, is that, throughout the time span, brass instruments maintained their associations with ritual and function. High ceremonies demanded the blare of trumpets, and armies, too, evidently continued the Roman tradition of communication and signalling by means of horns and trumpets of various types. These ritualistic legacies evidently laid the base for new directions which became evident in the fifteenth century, as various types of brass instruments became clearly associated with art music for the first time. It is the transition to participation in art music which marks a clear differentiation between the instrumental practice of the ancient world and that of the early modern era. This transition will provide the underlying theme to what follows.

Earlier Middle Ages

From the time of the break-up of the Roman Empire to the early fourteenth century the most telling transformations among brass instruments were those concerning trumpets. Horns of diverse kinds continued in use, although the details of their developments are very obscure and the use of early horns in any case seems to have had lesser impact on later medieval traditions.

In the nineteenth century, three processes took place simultaneously: the development of new types of brass instrument, further mechanisation in manufacture and increased mass production of instruments, and an enormous increase in the use of brasswind, particularly in bands. Keyed and valved brass and the remodelling of the slide trombone provided a varied palette of timbres: an instrumentarium of extensive chromatic compass in voices ranging from contrabass to soprano. The surge in brass playing in bands (described in Chapter 13) went hand in hand with the mass production of instruments at affordable prices. To an increasing extent, musical instruments became a trade commodity, made for export rather than local use.

The quality and variety of raw materials available to the brass instrument maker in Europe increased greatly in the period around the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The direct extraction of zinc from its ore, pioneered in the eighteenth century, led to brasses with a more controlled zinc content and a wider range of ratios of copper and zinc. The calamine process for producing brass, described in Chapter 3, was gradually supplanted by the direct alloying of copper and zinc. Refinements in the production of steel, most notably the Bessemer process, resulted in finer, tougher and more durable springs – essential components of efficient, smoothly operating valve mechanisms. More efficient and improved refining processes for other metals led to their use in specialised applications.

All brass instruments consist of a tube, at one end of which is a mouthpiece shaped so that the player can make an airtight seal when the lips are placed against it. The acoustical properties of brass instruments depend on the interactions of the player (in particular the oral cavities and lips), the air column inside the instrument, and the ambient air at the other end of the instrument. The column of air inside the tube is set into vibration when it is excited by the player buzzing his/her lips placed against the mouthpiece. A sustained sound on a brass instrument requires ‘standing waves’, i.e. soundwaves travelling from one end to the other and reflected from each end like water waves in a bath. Although the player opens his/her lips by blowing air through them, because he/she is buzzing his/her lips they are effectively closed for enough of the time to reflect most of the sound waves travelling towards them through the instrument. Whether the other end of the instrument terminates abruptly (as in a bugle) or terminates in a flaring bell (as in a trumpet), sound waves are reflected by the bell mouth or by the flare. The sound inside an instrument is much more intense than the sound produced by the instrument in the surrounding air. The bell of an instrument has to be carefully designed so that it reflects enough sound to allow standing waves to build up, yet allows enough sound to escape to be audible at an appropriate intensity to be useful in music. For this reason, brass instrument bells are of a limited range of patterns - one shaped like a gramophone horn, for example, would not work.

This book provides a broad overview of the story of brass instruments in western, and, to a lesser extent, non-western, music. Neither the book as a whole, nor any of the individual chapters contained in it, lays claim to being a comprehensive survey of its subject. Indeed, this is the first volume in the Cambridge Companion series to be devoted to a family of instruments rather than a single instrument type. Though it was a close-run decision, we felt that it was most helpful to look at the family of brass as a whole, because, though individual brass instruments have their own special histories, the merits of considering the family – particularly with respect to the way that brass instruments relate to each other – outweigh the benefits of dealing with just individual members of it.

There is probably no other family of instruments which has been more affected by the progress of history, with its attendant social changes, technical inventions and musical fashions. These changes have resulted in each instrument having not one, but several idioms. Such diversities are exemplified by the dilemma of modern performers who, on any day of any week, maybe required to imitate the style of the seventeenth century, the nineteenth century, 1920s Broadway, modern jazz, the Second Viennese school, or play the music of their own time within current parameters of taste and style.

The thing that we commonly call the modern orchestra is not really modern at all. It existed more or less in its present form in the early nineteenth century – even its seating arrangements were fixed by 1860. The repertoire it plays regularly was, for the most part, created between 1750 and the First World War: a sizeable number of regularly performed pieces were written in the first half of the twentieth century, but little of the orchestral music composed in the second half of the century has gained even a tenuous hold on the public's affections. The ‘modern orchestra’ is, if not exactly a fossil itself (as is sometimes alleged), then at least a collector of antiquities. This chapter describes evolving styles of writing for brass in the orchestral museum.

The brass section of a standard symphony orchestra will generally consist of four or five horns, three trumpets, three trombones and a tuba. This basic dozen will be enough for most of the music that is likely to be encountered, but is not an exact fit. Eighteenth-century brass sections were small – usually two horns and two trumpets. There was growth throughout the nineteenth century, culminating in Schoenberg's Gurrelieder (1912) which uses a brass section of twenty-five. Thereafter, composers continued to write for symphony orchestra but smaller forces have been common since about 1918.