Natural trumpet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the tones of the harmonic series.
The natural trumpet was originally used as a military instrument to facilitate communication (eg. break camp, retreat, etc).
During the early Baroque period the (natural) trumpet was accepted into Western Art Music. For this to occur, talented players such as the early Baroque composer Girolamo Fantini demonstrated that by playing in the extreme upper register and "lipping" the notes of the 11th and 13th harmonics (that is, flattening or sharpening those impure harmonics into tune with the embouchure), it was possible to play diatonic major and minor scales (and, hence, actual melodies) on a natural trumpet. The most talented players were even able to produce certain chromatic notes outside the harmonic series by this process (such as lipping a natural C down to B), although these notes were mostly used as brief passing tones.
Baroque composers such as Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach made frequent use of trumpets in sacred, orchestral, and even solo works. Many of these trumpet parts are quite technically difficult to play on a natural instrument, and were often written with a specific virtuoso performer in mind, such as Gottfried Reiche (Bach's chief trumpeter and the subject of a famous painting of the era) or Valentine Snow, for whom Handel composed some of his more noted trumpet parts.
The vast majority of Baroque trumpet parts were written for a natural instrument pitched in C or D, although there were occasional exceptions. J.S. Bach, for example, calls for a trumpet in Bb in his Cantatas #5 and #90, trumpets in Eb in the first version of his Magnificat and, most famously, the solo trumpet in high F in his Brandenburg Concerto #2.
Natural trumpets continued to be used through the Classical era and even into the early Romantic period. But changing musical styles along with a growing dearth of sufficiently capable players spelled an end to the high, florid, complicated parts typical of Baroque music. A few transitional composers, such as Michael Haydn and Leopold Mozart wrote concerti for natural trumpets in the early Classical era, but for many decades following, most orchestral trumpet writing consisted of basic harmonic support (what many trumpeters derisively refer to as "thumps and bumps"), with very little in the way of melody. There were occasional exceptions, such as Beethoven's Symphony #9 in which the trumpets double the melody of the famous "Ode to Joy" in the finale of the work.
Eventually, the development of the more versatile valve trumpet (after a brief attempt at developing a keyed trumpet, the instrument for which Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel wrote their famous concerti) spelled the end of the natural trumpet's place in Western music.
In modern-day performances of Baroque and Classical works by period orchestras, the trumpets used are usually slightly altered copies of natural instruments of the period, with the addition of anachronistic "tone holes" used to more easily and accurately correct the intonation of the instrument. There is a growing consensus to refer to these instruments as "Baroque trumpets" to distinguish them from "natural trumpets."
In conventional (non-period) orchestras, the highest Baroque trumpet parts are usually played on the modern piccolo trumpet, an instrument that provides firm support of range and attack, while unfortunately producing a sound very different from the natural trumpet the composers had in mind.
