THE ROMANTIC TRUMPET - Historic Brass Society

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easily recognizable because the diameter of its casing is rather large. However, Stoelzel also
developed such a valve, and instruments with both types of Berlin valves survive today. Both
gentlemen were unsuccessful in having their product patented, but such a fact is actually of
little import since even rejected inventions can be commercially successful if they prove
useful. The description that follows is indebted to unpublished findings made by Herbert
Heyde, which he cordially made known to me in a recent letter. 141
First, in 1827 Stoelzel tried unsuccessfully for a patent for his adaptation of the box
valve, 142 calling it a "tube valve" (Ger., Rehrenventil). Thus he must be credited with the
invention of what is known today as the "Berlin valve," which up to now has been attributed
by historians to Wieprecht, even though it is not absolutely certain if the original crosssection
of Stoelzel's Berlin valve was square or round. (Later is was indeed round.)
Wieprecht, who was first active in Leipzig, moved to Berlin in 1824 and became musical
director of the regimental band of the Royal Life Guards in 1828, a very influential position—
and all the more remarkable a fact since Wieprecht remained a civilian all his life. In 1833
he made his unsuccessful try for a patent—intended for trumpet, trombone, and horn—
calling his valve a Stecherbuchsen-VentiL Both Stoelzel's and Wieprecht's types of Berlin
valve with their somewhat plump appearance became quite popular in military-music circles
and were built in large numbers in Berlin (Wieprecht's type, by Moritz) and Markneukirchen,
particularly for the lower brass instruments.
According to Heyde, Stoelzel's and Wieprecht's Berlin valves can be differentiated
according to the positioning of the valve slides. With Stoelzel's, both the inlet and the outlet
of the slide are on one side of the valve casing, while with Wieprecht's, one is on either side
so that the slide (which is fixed and does not slide at all) forms a loop.
The reason Wieprecht has so long been incorrectly credited as the long inventor of the
Berlin valve is that he made this claim in an article written two years after Stoelzel's death.
Wieprecht's biographer Kalkbrenner took over this unsubstantiated assertion, and it
remained unquestioned until Heyde's research. 143
An advantage of the Wieprecht type of Berlin valve may have been that all its windways
are in a single plane. However, because of its clumsy action and despite its less expensive
production cost as opposed to the more complicated rotary valve (see below), it never
became accepted in art music. 144
2. Piston or Perinet valves. The slim piston valves used universally today are an
adaptation of the tubular valve, developed in 1839 by the above-mentioned Perinet of Paris
(and still referred to today in German-speaking countries as "Perinet valve"). 145 The
diameter of Perinet's valve is somewhat larger than that of the tubular valve but much smaller
than that of the Berlin valve. Perinet eliminated the sharp angles which had been a feature
of the tubular valve, whose windways pass through the bottom of the valve casings, and had
all the valve slides stand at right angles to the valve casings (like Stoelzel's but unlike
Wieprecht's Berlin valves). Modern piston-valved trumpets using Perinet's valve are made
in France, England, the United States, and Japan.
In early French sources, one often finds pistons or piston valves opposed to cylindres, the
other early type of valve used in France. However, the latter term is not to be confused with