Корнетт: Древний духовой инструмент эпохи Возрождения и Барокко

Early wind instrument with a cup mouthpiece

The cornett, cornetto, or zink is a wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. It was used in a variety of situations, including performances by professional musicians, state music and liturgical music. It accompanied choral music. It also featured in popular music in what are now called alta capellas or loud wind ensembles. Anthony Baines notes that the cornett "[ ] was praised in the very terms that were to be bestowed upon the oboe [ ]: it could be sounded as loud as a trumpet and as soft as a recorder, and its tone approached that of the human voice more nearly than that of any other instrument." It was popular in Germany, where guild laws made it illegal for residents to play trumpets. As well, the mute cornett variant was a quiet instrument, playing "gentle, soft and sweet." The instrument has features of both the trumpet and the flute. Like the trumpet, the cornett has a mouthpiece or cup, where the instrument is sounded with the player's lips. Like the flute, it has fingerholes (and sometimes keys) to determine pitch; pitch can also be changed on low notes by the tension of the player's lips.) from about 1836,
and cornett became the modern spelling of the older instrument. The most common form is the curved cornett, also called treble cornett or alto cornett.

Pipes as short as the cornett are only able to play two or three notes, if the only tool is the wind going through the tube. The cornett then, can play A and the next octave A. Beyond the upper A, a trumpeter might be able to reach the 12th note E. Other short trumpets had this issue, including King Tut's Trumpet, capable of only playing 2 notes without a modern mouthpiece. The cornett is not limited to trumpet notes; it also draws on fingerholes to achieve the notes between the natural upper and lower limits. The instrument had a conical bore, and the outside was octagonal. In the 18th century that changed to D4 to D6.

The cornett, among other aerophones, were commonly used for virtuosic musical performances, equivalent to performances by a lead singer or violinist. Heinrich Schütz also used the instrument extensively, especially in his earlier work; he had studied in Venice with Gabrieli and was likely acquainted with Bassano's playing. The use of the instrument had declined by 1700, although the instrument was still common in Europe until the late 18th century. Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann and their German contemporaries used both the cornett and cornettino in cantatas to play in unison with the soprano voices of the choir. Occasionally, these composers allocated a solo part to the cornetto (see Bach's cantata O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, BWV 118). Alessandro Scarlatti used the cornetto or pairs of cornetts in a number of his operas. Johann Joseph Fux used a pair of mute cornetts in a Requiem. It was scored for by Gluck, in his opera Orfeo ed Euridice (he suggested the soprano trombone as an alternative) and features in the TV theme music Testament by Nigel Hess, released in 1983. The cornett was chosen to play colla parte (in which instrumentalists play the same notes as the vocal part) in works by Bach. These include 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 allowed non professional musicians to learn instruments and play together. Such books included music theory, how to read sheet music, and instructions for how to reach notes on instruments. Professional musicians performed in public spaces and as part of official pomp before the country's residents. Images of heaven reflected a musicality that showed heavenly orchestras performing before God, and instruments were brought into churches. Public performances where the cornett might be played included the alta capella and the Collegium Musicum.

The cornett's pitches are controlled using a combination of the player's lips and fingerholes. The lips change pitch through different tensions. The fingerholes alter the length of the sound column. Cornetts are made with a mouthpiece, similar to that on brass instruments, but very small. Unlike the brass mouthpieces, players don't press the instrument to the center of their mouths, as on a trumpet. The technique is not unique to cornets, but has also been used for the traditional animal horn horns, such as the shofur and Slovak shepherd's horn, as well as for folk horns such as the Russian rozhok. Girolamo dalla Casa wrote about how the coronet should sound when played, and in doing so revealed other ways it could sound as well. He felt that the instrument was meant to imitate the human voice, saying, "The cornetto is the most excellent of the wind instruments since it imitates the human voice better than the other instruments." He warned that improperly played, it would sound "horn like or muted." Books written for other instruments were also applicable to the cornett. Among these were Ganassi
dal Fontego (Opera intitulata Fontegara, 1535) and Bismantova (Compendio musicale, 1677).

As a result of the recent historically informed performance movement the cornett has been rediscovered, and modern works for the instrument have been written.