The simple or field trumpet appears to exist now in one representative only, the E flat cavalry trumpet.  Bach wrote for trumpets up to the twentieth harmonic—­but for this the trumpet had to be divided into a principal, which ended at the tenth harmonic—­and the clarino in two divisions, the first of which went from the eighth harmonic up to as high as the player could reach, and the second clarino, from the sixth to the twelfth.  The use of the clarinet by composers about the middle of the last century seems to have abolished these very high trumpets.  So completely had they gone, by the time of Mozart, that he had to change Handel’s trumpet parts, to accommodate them to performers of his own time, and transfer the high notes to the oboes and clarinets.

Having alluded to the cornet a piston, it may be introduced here, particularly as from being between a trumpet and a bugle, and of four foot tone, it is often made to do duty for the more noble trumpet.  But the distinctive feature of this, as of nearly all brass instruments since the invention of valves, tends to a compromise instrument, which owes its origin to the bugle.  The cornet a piston is now not very different from the valve bugle in B flat on the one hand and from the small valve trumpet in the same key on the other.  It is a hybrid between this high pitch trumpet and the bugle, but compared with the latter it has a much smaller bell.  By the use of valves and pistons, with which it was the first to be endowed, the cornet can easily execute passages of consecutive notes that in the natural trumpet can only be got an octave higher.  It is a facile instrument, and double tonguing, which is also possible with the horn and trumpet, is one of its popular means for display.  It has a harmonic compass from middle C to C above the treble clef, and can go higher, but with difficulty.  A few lower notes, however, are easily taken with the valves.

We now come to the trombones, grand, sonorous tubes, which, existing in three or four sizes since the sixteenth century, are among the most potent additions on occasion to the full orchestra.  Their treble can be regarded as the English slide trumpet, but it is not exactly so.  There appears to have been as late as Bach a soprano trombone, and it is figured by Virdung, A.D. 1511, as no larger than the field trumpet.  The trumpet is not on so large a caliber, and in the seventeenth century had its own family of two clarinos and three tubas.  The old English name of the trombone is sackbut.  The old wooden cornet, or German zinke, an obsolete, cupped mouthpiece instrument, the real bass of which, according to family, is the now obsolete serpent, was used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the treble instrument in combination with alto, tenor, and bass trombones.  The leading features of the trumpet are also found, as already inferred, in the trombone; there is the cupped mouthpiece, the cylindrical tubing, and, finally,