cornetto

Cornetto is the diminutive of Italian corno (horn), from Latin cornu (horn). The word has named two different instruments. The Renaissance cornetto (also spelled cornett in English) was a wooden tube with finger holes and a cup-shaped mouthpiece, played from roughly 1500 to 1700. It was considered the instrument closest to the human voice. Giovanni Gabrieli wrote for it in Venice. Monteverdi used it in his operas. Then it disappeared.

The modern cornet — a brass instrument with piston valves — was developed in the 1820s in France, shortly after the invention of the valve mechanism. Jean-Louis Antoine developed the cornet à pistons (cornet with pistons) around 1828 by adding valves to a post horn. The name was recycled: the new instrument was still a 'little horn,' but it was made of brass, not wood, and used valves, not finger holes. The only thing the two instruments share is the name.

The cornet dominated brass band music in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was easier to play than the trumpet, more agile, and had a warmer tone. Salvation Army bands, circus bands, and town concert bands all featured cornets rather than trumpets. Jean-Baptiste Arban's Grand Method for Cornet (1864) remains the standard trumpet/cornet method book 160 years later.

The trumpet gradually displaced the cornet in the 20th century, particularly in orchestral and jazz contexts. The distinction between the two has blurred — modern cornets and trumpets are increasingly similar in bore profile and tone. The cornet survives primarily in British brass bands, where tradition maintains strict instrumentation. The little horn is becoming a niche instrument in the instrument it helped create.