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The Fanfare for St Edmundsbury is a fanfare for three trumpets written by the British composer Benjamin Britten for a "Pageant of Magna Carta" in the grounds of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds in 1959. [1]
The fanfare is scored for three trumpets. The parts are notated for modern trumpets in C; however, they are actually written using only the notes of three different harmonic series based on F, C and D and could thus be performed on three natural trumpets in those three keys. The natural trumpets were not specified by the composer; indeed it may have been a bit early in the rediscovery of natural trumpet playing for it to be safe to do so. This technique had been used by the classical composers in horn section writing, to enable lines to be played outside the natural scale (e.g. 2 horns in C and 2 horns in D or E flat). Some of the first experimentation of this technique is demonstrated by F.G.A. Dauvernè from around 1850. Dauvernè was Arban's teacher (the father of modern-day trumpeting) and wrote one of the last methods for the dying art of natural trumpet playing, including some of the first exercises for the cornet and valved trumpet. Nevertheless, the scoring is sometimes taken as signal enough to justify playing it on natural trumpets, on which it works well. [2] This multitonal use of natural instruments is an interesting trick which might have caused some surprise at the height of the natural trumpet's power in the Baroque era, when three playing together would almost always have been in the same key. Performance of the fanfare on modern valved instruments remains the norm and does not lessen the effect: the parts still feel like natural trumpet lines. Britten commented, "The trumpeters should be placed as far apart as possible, even when the Fanfare is played indoors." [1]
Each trumpet plays one solo "verse" in turn. These are not only separated from each other in key but also in style: although they all include some long notes at phrase ends, overall one is a bouncy 6/8, one a martial-sounding, bold statement, and one a series of smooth arpeggios. So when they all come in together at the end and play their verses simultaneously the initial effect seems chaotic. As the last playthrough progresses it gradually dawns on the listener that a unity is emerging from the chaos as the long notes start to settle and overlap: by the last few bars the three trumpets are playing triumphant block chords together. [3]
Many recordings are available, but nearly always on compilations of modern brass or fanfare music – the piece is so short that it almost never receives separate billing. Recordings have been made by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and similar groups. [4]
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin and Greek elements meaning 'lip' and 'sound'.
The cornet is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B♭. There is also a soprano cornet in E♭ and cornets in A and C. All are unrelated to the Renaissance and early Baroque cornett.
The euphonium is a medium-sized, 3 or 4-valve, often compensating, conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Ancient Greek word εὔφωνος euphōnos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced". The euphonium is a valved instrument. Nearly all current models have piston valves, though some models with rotary valves do exist.
The French horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist.
The term sackbut refers to the early forms of the trombone commonly used during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. A sackbut has the characteristic telescopic slide of a trombone, used to vary the length of the tube to change pitch, but is distinct from later trombones by its smaller, more cylindrically-proportioned bore, and its less-flared bell. Unlike the earlier slide trumpet from which it evolved, the sackbut possesses a U-shaped slide with two parallel sliding tubes, rather than just one.
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate. Nearly all trombones use a telescoping slide mechanism to alter the pitch instead of the valves used by other brass instruments. The valve trombone is an exception, using three valves similar to those on a trumpet, and the superbone has valves and a slide.
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B♭ or C trumpet.
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which music notation is not written at concert pitch. For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing instrument produces a pitch other than middle C; that sounding pitch identifies the interval of transposition when describing the instrument. Playing a written C on clarinet or soprano saxophone produces a concert B♭, so these are referred to as B♭ instruments. Providing transposed music for these instruments is a convention of musical notation. The instruments do not transpose the music; rather, their music is written at a transposed pitch. Where chords are indicated for improvisation they are also written in the appropriate transposed form.
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the predecessor to the modern-day (French) horn. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century the natural horn evolved as a separation from the trumpet by widening the bell and lengthening the tubes. It consists of a mouthpiece, long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. This instrument was used extensively until the emergence of the valved horn in the early 19th century.
The keyed trumpet is a cylindrical-bore brass instrument in the trumpet family that makes use of tone holes operated by keys to alter pitch and provide a full chromatic scale, rather than extending the length of tubing with a slide or valves. It was developed from the natural trumpet and reached its high-point in popularity around the turn of the nineteenth century, but waned with the invention of valves in the 1820s and the subsequent emergence of the modern valved trumpet. It is rarely seen in modern performances.
The buisine and the añafil were variations of a type of straight medieval trumpet usually made of metal, also called a herald's trumpet. While arguably the same instrument, the two names represent two separate traditions, in which a Persian-Arabic-Turkic instrument called the Nafir entered European culture in different places and times.
A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series.
A crook, also sometimes called a shank, is an exchangeable segment of tubing in a natural horn which is used to change the length of the pipe, altering the fundamental pitch and harmonic series which the instrument can sound, and thus the key in which it plays.
Marching brass instruments are brass instruments specially designed to be played while moving. Most instruments do not have a marching version - only the following have marching versions:
The baroque trumpet is a musical instrument in the brass family. Invented in the mid-20th century, it is based on the natural trumpet of the 16th to 18th centuries, but designed to allow modern performers to imitate the earlier instrument when playing music of that time. Often synonymous with 'natural trumpet', the term 'baroque trumpet' is often used to differentiate an instrument which has added vent holes and other modern compromises, from an original or replica natural trumpet which does not.
Clarion is a name for a high-pitched trumpet in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It also is used as a name for a 4' organ reed stop, producing high-pitched or clarion-like sound on a pipe organ, and playing the clarion trumpet's range of notes.
The piccolo trumpet is the smallest member of the trumpet family, pitched one octave higher than the standard B♭ trumpet. Most piccolo trumpets are built to play in either B♭ or A, using a separate leadpipe for each key. The tubing in the B♭ piccolo trumpet is one-half the length of that in a standard B♭ trumpet. Piccolo trumpets in G, F, and even high C are also manufactured, but are rarer.
A fanfare band, fanfare corps, fanfare battery, fanfare team, horn and drum corps, bugle band, drum and bugle corps, or trumpet and drum band is a military or civilian musical ensemble composed of percussion instruments, bugles, natural horns and natural trumpets. Fanfare bands are the descendants of the old medieval trumpet and drum teams that sounded fanfares on important occasions and are related to drum and bugle corps internationally.
A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other brass instruments such as the trumpet, the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is conical rather than cylindrical. In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any wind instrument, and a section of brass or woodwind instruments, or a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts.
The German horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell, and in bands and orchestras is the most widely used of three types of horn, the other two being the French horn and the Vienna horn. Its use among professional players has become so universal that it is only in France and Vienna that any other kind of horn is used today. A musician who plays the German horn is called a horn player. The word "German" is used only to distinguish this instrument from the now-rare French and Viennese instruments. Although the expression "French horn" is still used colloquially in English for any orchestral horn, since the 1930s professional musicians and scholars have generally avoided this term in favour of just "horn". Vienna horns today are played only in Vienna, and are made only by Austrian firms. German horns, by contrast, are not all made by German manufacturers, nor are all French-style instruments made in France.
