Catholic - Historic Brass Society

UTLEY & KLAUS
91
Figure 12
Horn with two disc valves in reversed order by Köhler, London.
Illustration from The Crystal Palace and its Contents; an Illustrated Cyclopædia
of the Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations
(London: W.M. Clark, 1851-52), 286.
Box valves
The two box-valve trumpets in the list were built by the Karlsruhe maker Friedrich Wilhelm
Schuster, presumably around 1825. According to François-Joseph Fétis, Schuster learned
of the new valve inventions in Berlin by Friedrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blühmel around
1815 through a court horn player in Karlsruhe, Christoph Schuncke, who traveled to
Berlin. 12 In terms of chronology and personal contacts, as well as the construction of his
valve, Schuster is the maker closest to the originators of the valve. His box valve seems to be
an immediate derivation of Blühmel’s construction, even as concerns the valve order. 13 The
early date of these instruments is also apparent from the lack of valve slides (Figure 13).