Catholic - Historic Brass Society

128
HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY JOURNAL
by measuring the length of the inner slide tube receivers, which were shorter for the first and
longer for the second valve.
On instruments with one inner and one outer moving slide for each of the valves the
fixed construction is obvious, since one of the outer slide tube receivers must be longer than
the other (Figure 42).
Figure 42
Cornopean in Bf, unsigned, probably Johann Adam Heckel, Dresden, ca. 1838
(Markneukirchen, 71), with one inner and one outer moving slide for each valve.
As was mentioned at the outset, it was not possible to check all the valve constructions
by pulling out the slides, either because the slides were frozen or the instruments could not
be examined personally. Despite this restriction, the data gathered here offers a rather clear
picture of the relationship between fixed and interchangeable constructions, as can be seen
in Chart 8.
Of the instruments examined or known from the literature, 158 (92%) have the fixed
valve order semitone = first valve and whole tone = second valve, beyond doubt. Five
instruments (3%) have interchangeable slides and three more (2%) are suspected to be
interchangeable. The remainder, six instruments in all (3%), are most likely of the fixed
construction, but this could not be confirmed. The number of instruments with
interchangeable valve order may be slightly higher than indicated above, as it is impossible
to know how many instruments known only with the regular, modern valve order are in fact