The cornett, cornetto, or zink is an early wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650.
It was used in a variety of musical forms, 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. The cornett was characterized as "loud as a trumpet and soft as a recorder." 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. The cornett was built in two styles, straight and curved. It was also built in a variety of sizes from highest cornettino downward through alto cornett, cornone tenor cornett, and bass cornett. It is not to be confused with the modern cornet. The spelling cornet which had applied to the instrument in this article since about 1400 A.D. was transferred to a brass-tubed trumpet in the early 20th century, and cornett became the modern spelling of this instrument. The most common is the curved cornett, also called treble cornett or alto cornett.
Construction
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 cornett has six fingerholes in the front and one thumbhole in the back. The holes allow the instrument to play a diatonic scale. Additionally, using "cross fingering" and different tension in the lips, the instrument can play the chromatic scale. A player in 1738 who mastered the cross-fingering and lip tension was documented to have reached 27 notes and half notes. In comparison, Praetorius gave cornetts credit for achieving 15 notes, before players used techniques to expand the range.
The bore of the instrument is conical, narrow at the tip and wide at the bottom. The ordinary curved treble cornett is made by splitting a length of wood ("plum, cherry or pear") and carving out the two halves to make the gently conical, curved bore. The halves are then glued together, and the outside planed to an octagonal cross section, the whole being bound in thin black leather.
Six front finger holes and a thumb hole on the back (like on the recorder) are bored in the instrument, and are slightly undercut. The socket for the mouthpiece at the narrow end is reinforced with a brass collar, concealed by an ornamental silver or brass mount. The separate cup mouthpiece is usually made of horn, ivory, or bone, with a thin rim and thread-wrapped shank, which is used to tune the instrument. Because it lacks a little-finger hole at the bottom, its lowest note is the A below middle C, though another tone lower G could be produced by slackening the lips to flatten the note.
The instruments were made with a very small mouthpiece described as "sharp", and as a result, images don't always show players blowing like a trumpet.
Mute cornetts were made of boxwood. The top of the instrument is narrow; the bore is about 4 mm wide at the top of the instrument, with a mouthpiece carved into the top 13 mm across and 9 mm deep. The mouthpiece is cone-shaped.
Cornett family
Cornetts were built in two styles, curved and straight.
The cornett was, like almost all Renaissance and Baroque instruments, made in a complete family; the different sizes being the high cornettino, the cornett (or curved cornett), the tenor cornett (or lizard) and the rare bass cornett. The serpent largely supplanted the bass cornett in the 17th century. Other versions include the mute cornett, which is a straight narrow-bore instrument with integrated mouthpiece, quiet enough to be used in a consort of viols or even recorders.
Curved cornetts
Cornetts shaped with gradual curve, greater than 90°, a single curve like a comma, or an S-curve. The instrument had a conical bore, and the outside was octagonal.