Tenor cornett

The tenor cornett or lizard was a common musical instrument in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This instrument was normally built in C and the pedal (lowest) note of the majority of tenor cornetts was the C below middle C. A number of surviving instruments feature a key to secure the lowest note. The instrument has a useful range of approximately two and a half octaves, however, an experienced player with a strong embouchure may be able to push the instrument higher.

The tenor cornett was used by composers like Giovanni Gabrieli, Heinrich Schütz and Orlando di Lasso as an alto or tenor voice in an ensemble of cornetts and trombones.

Like most specimens of treble cornetts, tenor cornetts were usually pitched in Chorton or Kornett-ton, circa a' = 466 Hz - around a semi-tone higher than modern concert pitch, which is a' = 440 Hz.

Nomenclature

The tenor cornett was also known as the lyzard, lizarden, lysarden or lyzarden, on account of the "S" shape of the instrument. The instrument was also known as the cornetto tenore, cornetto grosso, cornetto storto or cornone, in Italian, and Corno, Tenor-Zink or Groß Tenor-Zink in German. In a number of works from the late 16th and early 17th centuries there are parts for tenor cornetts which feature only the word "Cornetto" or "Cornetto ô Trombon" above or next to the part. We know that such parts are intended for the tenor cornett on account of the tessitura of the musical line and the fact that the C tenor clef is used. For example, see: Canzon in echo duodecimi toni à 10 by Giovanni Gabrieli and Ist nicht Ephraim mein teurer Sohn SWV 40 (from the great Psalmen Davids of 1619) by Heinrich Schütz, both of these works feature low cornetto lines written in the C tenor clef.