Catholic - Historic Brass Society

UTLEY & KLAUS
107
Finally, there are two instruments with double-piston valves of a very special kind.
Their construction would not deserve the German term Doppelrohrschubventile (doublepiston
“push” valves), customarily used for all of the above-mentioned types, but would have
to be called Doppelrohrzugventile (double-piston “pull” valve). Such a valve type is found on
the unsigned trumpet in G, which was probably built in Markneukirchen (Markneukirchen,
69, Figure 27), and another horn from the Hirsbrunner workshop.
Figure 27
Trumpet in G, unsigned, Markneukirchen, ca. 1835 (Markneukirchen, 69).
The pistons are pulled, not pushed.
On the trumpet from Markneukirchen the valves are positioned exceptionally far apart.
The two-armed lever-operating mechanism is placed at the end of the pistons. When a lever
is pressed down it lifts a bar on the opposite side of the axle and hence pulls the ends of the
pistons up (instead of pushing them down, in the customary manner). It is possible to
operate the levers with two fingers of one hand; however, it would be more convenient to
operate them with both hands. This trumpet is held vertically, like the Bavarian instruments,
but with the loop below the bell.
Rotary valves
The only valve type found throughout the entire time span under discussion is the rotary
valve. Altogether, seventy-one instruments with rotary valves are listed in Table 1. They were
almost equally common from the 1840s until the 1890s, as can be seen in Chart 4a. Again,
several different types can be distinguished.