Clarion (instrument)
Clarion is a name for a high-pitched trumpet used in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is also a name for a 4' organ reed stop that produces a high-pitched or clarion-like sound on a pipe organ in the clarion trumpet's range of notes.
Woman playing a clareta or clarion, from a woodcut by Tobias Stimmer, circa 1575. Possibly a slide trumpet or trombone. | |
| Brass instrument | |
|---|---|
| Other names | clairon, clarin trumpet, clarino, chiarina |
| Classification | Brass |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification | 423.121 (Natural trumpets – There are no means of changing the pitch apart from the player's lips; end-blown trumpets – The mouth-hole faces the axis of the trumpet. Some may have been (423.22) slide trumpets, in an attempt to gain more notes.) |
| Developed | Developed from the buisine or by experimenting with the idea of a metal tubular instrument with bends to shorten length |
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The word clarion has changed meanings over centuries and across languages. Today, in modern French clairon refers to the bugle, while in Italy chiarina refers to modern trumpets of historic design, made from bent tubing and without valves, similar to the natural trumpet. Resembling these instruments is the modern fanfare trumpet, like the chiarina or natural trumpet, but with the option of using valves.
Clarion became a musical term to refer the upper register of the standard trumpet. However, a clarin trumpet did exist with a narrower bore than the standard trumpet and a "broad, flat mouthpiece," designed to "play the high partials."
In war the trumpet historically had a harsh sound, often described as, "like the braying of an ass." As technology improved the ability of trumpets to take pressure and reach more notes and higher notes, that higher-pitched sound became the focus of the term clarion. By the 14th century, it was described as high-pitched, shrill, or clear sounding.
In general (and not all early writers agreed) the clarion was a shorter trumpet with narrower bore. For example, a 1606 author named Nicot wrote that while the term clarion had once referred to a group of high pitched trumpets with a narrower bore, by his day it was the higher pitches in a sound range that any trumpet should be able to play.
The narrowing of the bore and the manufacturers' control of how gradually it widened changed the tone of new instruments. Rather than braying, the trumpets took on the sound of courts, sounding much like the modern fanfare trumpet. During the development process, longer "shrill" trumpets such as the añafil or buisine trumpets were folded into more compact forms. By 1511, Virdung had published engravings of these folded instruments, one labeled "clareta", which became the clarion. Tonally, clarin or clarino also came to refer to melodic playing in the upper register of the trumpet "with a soft and melodious, singing tone"
By 1600 the term clarin came to be a musical term used by composers for "the highest trumpet part" in Germany and Spain and was limited to German and Spanish composers from the 16th–19th centuries. Clarino was used by Italians, but not for trumpets.