Trumpets, clarinos, cornets and bugles in the 19th century and the resources for the historical study of wind instrument in Brazil

Abstract

Our study addresses a common problem found in publications and editions of Brazilian music stemming from 19th Century sources, which frequently consider the cornet and the trumpet to be the exact same instrument. However, research in organology reveals that the cornet should not be so readily exchanged for the trumpet in these sources, and is the custom nowadays. We will show that this problem originates in the importation of musical instruments from Europe, using the following resources: importation lists from the Imperial customs; musical iconography; commercial catalogues from musical instrument stores; old dictionaries and musical manuscripts.
Keywords: cornet; trumpet; musical instruments; 19th century repertoire; Brazil.