1.1 Creating Music from Lip Vibration: Labrosones Through the Ages
11
Fig. 1.9 The three authors playing (left) a serpent made by Keith Rodgers, (centre) a sackbut made
by Frank Tomes and (right) a cornett made by Keith Rodgers
The cornett was the natural partner to the sackbut in Renaissance wind ensembles, since it was also capable of chromatic playing with a range of well over
two octaves. The cornett illustrated on the right of Fig. 1.9, a modern copy based
on a seventeenth-century original, is an approximately conical wooden tube with
six finger holes and one thumb hole. The cornett was the supreme virtuoso
wind instrument in the early seventeenth century; after a period of neglect in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it has once more regained its place as an
indispensible element in performances of the music of composers such as Giovanni
Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz.
The instrument illustrated on the left of Fig. 1.9 has played a more modest
musical role than the cornett and sackbut, but nevertheless deserves an honourable
mention in our brief survey of the varied world of labrosones. The serpent emerged
in northern France at the end of the sixteenth century, and its original function was
to accompany the singing of plainchant in churches. It is a wide-bored conical tube
more than 2 m in length and in its simplest form has six finger holes. Its serpentine
shape makes it possible for the player to cover the six holes with three fingers of
each hand, but the irregular spacing of the holes and their small diameter relative to
the diameter of the main bore introduce acoustical complications which make the
instrument hard to play in tune. Nevertheless, it continued to be in use in churches
and military bands for more than two centuries and even appeared in the scores of
Berlioz and Wagner (see Sect. 7.8).
11
Fig. 1.9 The three authors playing (left) a serpent made by Keith Rodgers, (centre) a sackbut made
by Frank Tomes and (right) a cornett made by Keith Rodgers
The cornett was the natural partner to the sackbut in Renaissance wind ensembles, since it was also capable of chromatic playing with a range of well over
two octaves. The cornett illustrated on the right of Fig. 1.9, a modern copy based
on a seventeenth-century original, is an approximately conical wooden tube with
six finger holes and one thumb hole. The cornett was the supreme virtuoso
wind instrument in the early seventeenth century; after a period of neglect in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it has once more regained its place as an
indispensible element in performances of the music of composers such as Giovanni
Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz.
The instrument illustrated on the left of Fig. 1.9 has played a more modest
musical role than the cornett and sackbut, but nevertheless deserves an honourable
mention in our brief survey of the varied world of labrosones. The serpent emerged
in northern France at the end of the sixteenth century, and its original function was
to accompany the singing of plainchant in churches. It is a wide-bored conical tube
more than 2 m in length and in its simplest form has six finger holes. Its serpentine
shape makes it possible for the player to cover the six holes with three fingers of
each hand, but the irregular spacing of the holes and their small diameter relative to
the diameter of the main bore introduce acoustical complications which make the
instrument hard to play in tune. Nevertheless, it continued to be in use in churches
and military bands for more than two centuries and even appeared in the scores of
Berlioz and Wagner (see Sect. 7.8).