18 News - Historic Brass Society

Stewart Carter, Wake Forest University
“Nicks, Kerfs, and Joints: The Story of the Cornetto in the Late
Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries”
After reaching the zenith of its popularity in the early decades of the
seventeenth century, when composers such as Claudio Monteverdi
and Biagio Marini wrote virtuoso parts for it, the cornett entered a
long, slow decline. My study demonstrates the continued use of the
cornett as late as the 1840s, almost exclusively in German-speaking
ments,
principally in the form of treatises on instrumentation, as well
as twelve instruments that survive in collections in Europe and the
United States.
Surviving treatises demonstrate that many nineteenth-century writers
Ordnung (1828) demonstrates the continued use of the cornett in the
(1844) contains an eyewitness account of
techniques evolved as the popularity of the cornett waned. The manufacture
of cornetts was by this time largely a sideline for makers, who
in some cases adapted techniques used in making other woodwinds
to the manufacture of cornetts. Seven of the surviving cornetts from
this late period represent a new form of the instrument, the threepiece
straight variety, its articulated construction apparently derived
of curved cornetts, makers adapted techniques used in the construction
of such woodwinds as the and the curved type of
English horn and basset horn: X-ray photographs of a curved cornett
from 1805 reveal how the instrument was “kerfed” or nicked in order
facilitate bending with steam.
Sabine K. Klaus, National Music Museum, Joe and Joella Utley
Curator of Brass Instruments
“German-American Relationships — Immigration and Trade Factors
in American Brass Instruments during the Nineteenth and early
Twentieth Centuries”
David Loucky, Professor of Trombone and Euphonium, Middle
Tennessee State University, ophicleide
Richard Cherry, piano
Verdi, Donizetti, Gounod and Marchetti, published for various
wind instruments and piano, with performances of -
and for ophicleide and piano.
Concluding concert
Natural Trumpet Ensmble – Fanfare by Dvorak (1892)
Bob Civiletti, Baroque trumpet.
by Reuter
David Louckey, ophicleide, Richard Cherry, piano
“Oh Ruddier than the Cherry” G. F. Handel
Allan Dean, Frank Hosticka, Don Johnson, Flora Newberry; cornets
3 Quartets by Kresser (1844)
Douglas Hedwig, valve posthorn
by Douglas Hedwig, (2005)
North American premier
Federal City Brass Band
3 rd
Jeff Rogers, alto soloist
Early Brass Festival Brass Band, Henry Meredith, conductor
The Thunderer, J.P. Sousa
, Camille de Nardis
The close relationship between German and American brass instrument
production in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries is a well-known fact. Saxon makers were particularly active
in supplying the American market with brass instruments before the
arrival of the large American factories. Makers of the Vogtland were
mostly dependent on dealers, who sold their goods for higher prices. As
a result, a considerable number of German makers decided to avoid the
dealers and seek their fortune overseas. Many of them immigrated to
brass instruments during the Civil War in America. During this period
German makers adapted their instruments to American models.
In my lecture I will delineate this development with examples of
American brass instruments of the second half of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, manufactured by German immigrants. These
examples will be taken primarily from the Joe R. and Joella F. Utley
South Dakota. Also, the question of how to interpret signatures on
brass instruments will be addressed in the light of trade and dealer
relationships between Germany and America.
David Louckey and Richard Cherry
HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY NEWSLETTER - WINTER 2005 | 11