Cornettino

The cornettino (plural cornettini) was the descant instrument of the cornetto family. Cornettini usually featured a primary scale of C or D major, with middle C or the adjacent D the pedal note of the instrument. The regular cornett was the 'treble' instrument of the family.

Construction

Like the cornetto, the cornettino was made from two pieces of wood, carved out and glued together. The instrument was covered in leather or parchment to prevent leaks and improve the grip for the player. Some instruments were made from ivory and these instruments were, accordingly, not covered in leather. The mouthpieces were made from animal horn, bone or ivory. Some instruments featured metal mountings at one or both ends of the instrument. These mountings helps prevent the fraying of the leather or parchment and were decorative. Silver and gold were used for these mountings.

History

Cornettini were common in the high Renaissance and the Baroque musical periods. Cornettini were featured extensively in Northern European music and almost ignored entirely by Southern European composers, except those who migrated north. In the time of Michael Praetorius, the cornettino seems to have sometimes been used in sacred vocal music to play in unison with voices (esp. tenors) an octave higher. Later in the 17th century, Northern European composers frequently used cornettini in large scale Masses, cantatas and other sacred music. The cornettino was favoured by the Stadtpfeiffen and composers like Johann Caspar Horn and Matthias Spiegler wrote a significant quantity of consort music featuring the one to three cornettini. It appears that the cornettino continued to be used, primarily in church music and in Stadtpfeiffer bands, in some places in Europe until the late 18th century. Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach used the cornettino in several church cantatas.