Before the trumpet took over, the cornet was the brass section's melody star
The cornet looks like a squashed trumpet and plays the same notes, yet its tubing widens steadily from mouthpiece to bell, giving a warmer, rounder tone. For about a century it carried the tunes while valveless trumpets blasted fanfares, and early jazz belonged to it until Louis Armstrong switched.
It began in the 1820s, when makers fitted valves to the posthorn. That depended on the piston valve, devised in the early 19th century by two Silesian horn players, Friedrich Bluhmel and Heinrich Stolzel, who shared a ten-year patent; Bluhmel probably invented it and Stolzel made it practical. In 1838 Francois Perinet patented an improved valve that became the template for modern brass. The name comes from the French corne, horn, and the instrument has nothing to do with the wooden Renaissance cornett. Jean-Baptiste Arban, its first great virtuoso, published his famous method in 1864, still known simply as the Arban.
Valves let the cornet play every note of the chromatic scale, while trumpets of the time were confined to the widely spaced notes of the natural harmonic series. Composers therefore wrote separate parts for the two, giving the cornet the lyrical lines. Berlioz was the first major figure to do this, adding a solo cornet countermelody to the ball scene of his Symphonie fantastique in 1830, and Tchaikovsky used cornets in Capriccio Italien in 1880. As trumpets gained valves the two instruments converged. Stravinsky gave the cornet a celebrated solo in the original 1911 Petrushka, then reassigned it to trumpet in his 1946 revision.
The mostly conical bore makes the cornet nimbler in fast passages, though its pitching is less secure, and its compact shape keeps the weight close to the body, which is why teachers often start beginners on it. Traditionalists prefer the short Shepherd's Crook model with its mellow sound; the long American-wrap version is brighter.
In British brass bands it still rules: of about thirty players, nine play B flat cornets and one the higher E flat soprano, and trumpets are never used. Jazz tells the opposite story. Buddy Bolden, King Oliver and Bix Beiderbecke played cornet, but the swing era and bebop favoured louder, more piercing trumpets, and Armstrong's move to trumpet is often seen as the turning point.
Source: Cornet
