Curved cornetto
Date1700 ca.
Place MadeFrance, Europe
Place MadeGermany, Europe
Serial No.none
SignednoneMarkingsnone
DescriptionLowest note with all fingerholes closed: a
One-piece walnut, turned straight and then bent, no leather cover; brass ferrule at top end with engraved lines; curved to the right; octagonal, no diamonds; six fingerholes, no thumbhole.
This cornetto, being made of one piece rather than two leather-covered halves, stands in a long tradition of cornetto making in German speaking countries; the brass ferrule at the mouthpiece receiver is a feature found in cornetti from Germany. The lack of diamond carvings hint at German origin as well, also indicating a later period of manufacture, possibly as late as the eighteenth century. The lack of a thumbhole, on the other hand, is a characteristic mentioned by the French seventeenth-century scholar Marin Mersenne’s (Harmonie Universelle, Paris 1636/37). German or French provenance from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century is therefore possible.
DimensionsHeight: 575 mm
Tube length: 580 mm
Bore diameter (initial, minimum): 9.3 mm, 7.5 mm
Bell diameter (internal): 25.4 mm
Fingerhole position (from receiver): 237 mm, 277 mm, 315 mm, 383 mm, 422 mm, 461 mm
Hole diameter range: 7.6-7.8 mm
ProvenancePurchased in 2002 from Gerhard Stradner, Vienna, Austria. Previously sold through André Bissonnet, Paris, France.
Published ReferencesKlaus, Sabine Katharina. Trumpets and Other High Brass: A History Inspired by the Joe R. and Joella F. Utley Collection. Volume 2: Ways to Expand the Harmonic Series (Vermillion, SD: National Music Museum, 2013), pp. 78-79, 88, 90, 253.
Klaus, S. K. "Zinkengrößen: Überlegungen zur historischen Terminologie," in: Mozart im Zentrum. Festschrift für Manfred Hermann Schmid zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by Ann-Katrin Zimmermann and Klaus Aringer (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2010), pp. 423 and 438.
Carter, Stewart A. "The Salem Cornets," Historic Brass Society Journal 14 (2002), pp. 289-290.
Klaus, S. K. "Competing with Violins and Almost Like a Human Voice … Two More Cornetti Added to Museum Treasures,” America’s National Music Museum Newsletter 29, no. 4 (November 2002), pp. 4-5.
Stradner, Gerhard. "Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s Remarks on the Cornett," in: Brass Scholarship in Review: Proceedings of the Historic Brass Soceity Conference, Cité de la Musque, Paris 1999, ed. by Stewart Carter (Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press, 2006), p. 116.
Stradner, Gerhard (ed.). Die Klangwelt Mozarts: Exhibition catalog, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Sammlung Alter Musikinstrumente, 28 April-27 October 1991 (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1991), p. 295, no. 193.
Credit LineJoe R. and Joella F. Utley Collection, 2002
Object number10136
On View
Not on view
1600 ca.
