Keyed trumpet
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The keyed trumpet is a transitional instrument from the natural trumpet or invention trumpet to the modern trumpet with a valve system .
The first attempts can be dated to the second half of the 18th century. After the Petersburg horn player Ferdinand Kölbel equipped a horn with (two) keys, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart reports on a trumpet that was built in Dresden with keys. However, this project was rejected because the characteristic trumpet sound was completely changed and, according to Schubart, was somewhere between trumpet and oboe. In the period that followed, further attempts at this trumpet design by the Weimar court trumpeter JH Schwanitz , Ernst Kellner in Holland (1780–1785) and Neßmann (1793) are known.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the Viennese trumpeter Anton Weidinger (1766–1852) constructed an “organized trumpet with keys that can be used to produce all chromatic tones in all registers”. Anton Weidinger's keyed trumpet opened up completely new areas of expression: Now you could also play melodies and chromatic passages in the lower pitch range . However, the sound of the keyed trumpet was softer and less penetrating, so that the instrument was often compared to the sonorous sound of the oboe or the clarinet. In order to present his new invention to the public, Weidinger had commissioned trumpet concerts from several composers and on March 28, 1800 announced a "large public academy".
The famous Concerto for Keyed Trumpet in E flat major by Joseph Haydn , which was premiered as part of this academy, exhausted the new possibilities that this opened up for the trumpet to the limit. In the following years many more concerts were written for Weidinger a. a. the equally famous E flat major concerto by Johann Nepomuk Hummel . Since this concerto was actually written in E major, it can be assumed that Weidinger developed a new trumpet model between the two concerts.
Even if Weidinger himself used the keyed trumpet until around 1845 and the new valve mechanism of the trumpets was very unreliable in the early days (until around 1850), the keyed trumpet could not keep up with the innovations and was quickly replaced by the valve trumpets. However, this did not happen across the board, so that the keyed trumpet was used for much longer, especially in military music in Austria and Italy. Around 50 original instruments have been preserved and are exhibited in various museums.
Flap horn is the name for an instrument of this type with a slightly wider bore . The counterpart in the bass range is the ophicleide .
Sound generation
As with other brass instruments, the sound is generated with a kettle mouthpiece and thus works according to the upholstered pipe system . If all keys are closed, the entire length of the instrument acts on the oscillating air column - the deepest natural tone row can be created. If a flap is opened (like a finger hole on the recorder), the vibrating column of air ends at this point and the row of notes increases accordingly. This same principle of operation also applies to zinc .
Due to the principle, the tone holes must have the same diameter as possible as the length of the tube at this point, in accordance with the construction of the saxophone .
The muffled sound of the keyed trumpet is due to the fact that the actual sound outlet is now primarily the physically open tone hole "roofed over" with a key and no longer the bell itself. This only affects the sound on the overtones .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Edward Tarr : The Trumpet. Your story from antiquity to the present . 2nd Edition. Schott, Mainz / London / New York / Tokyo 1984, ISBN 978-3-7957-2353-8 .
- ^ A b c John Henry van der Meer : Musical instruments from antiquity to the present . Prestel, Munich 1983, ISBN 978-3-7913-0656-8 .