Bibliography.—The subject of the bibliography of Corneille was treated in the most exhaustive manner by M. E. Picot in hisBibliographie Cornélienne(Paris, 1875-1876). Less elaborate, but still ample information may be found in J. A. Taschereau’sVieand in M. Marty-Laveaux’s edition of theWorks. The individual plays were usually printed a year or two after their first appearance: but these dates have been subjected to confusion and to controversy, and it seems better to refer for them to the works quoted and to be quoted. The chief collected editions in the poet’s lifetime were those of 1644, 1648, 1652, 1660 (with important corrections), 1664 and 1682, which gives the definitive text. In 1692 T. Corneille published a completeThéâtrein 5 vols. 12mo. Numerous editions appeared in the early part of the 18th century, that of 1740 (6 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam) containing theŒuvres diversesas well as the plays. Several editions are recorded between this and that of Voltaire (12 vols. 8vo; Geneva, 1764, 1776, 8 vols. 4to), whoseCommentaireshave often been reprinted separately. In the year IX. (1801) appeared an edition of theWorkswith Voltaire’s commentary and criticisms thereon by Palissot (12 vols. 8vo, Paris). Since this the editions have been extremely numerous. Those chiefly to be remarked are the following. Lefèvre’s (12 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1854), well printed and with a useful variorum commentary, lacks bibliographical information and is disfigured by hideous engravings. Of Taschereau’s, in theBibliothèque elzévirienne, only two volumes were published. Lahure’s appeared in 5 vols. (1857-1862) and 7 vols. (1864-1866). The edition of Ch. Marty-Laveaux in Regnier’sGrands Écrivains de la France(1862-1868), in 12 vols. 8vo, is still the standard. In appearance and careful editing it leaves nothing to desire, containing the entire works, a lexicon, full bibliographical information, and an album of illustrations of the poet’s places of residence, his arms, some title-pages of his plays, facsimiles of his writings, &c. Nothing is wanting but variorum comments, which Lefèvre’s edition supplies. Fontenelle’s life of his uncle is the chief original authority on that subject, but Taschereau’sHistoire de la vie et des ouvrages de P. Corneille(1st ed. 1829, 2nd in theBibl. elzévirienne, 1855) is the standard work. Its information has been corrected and augmented in various later publications, but not materially. Of the exceedingly numerous writings relative to Corneille we may mention theRecueil de dissertations sur plusieurs tragédies de Corneille et de Racineof the abbé Granet (Paris, 1740), the criticisms already alluded to of Voltaire, La Harpe and Palissot, the well-known work of Guizot, first published asVie de Corneillein 1813 and revised asCorneille et son tempsin 1852, and the essays, repeated in hisPortraitslittéraires, inPort-Royal, and in theNouveaux Lundisof Sainte-Beuve. More recently, besides essays by MM. Brunetière, Faguet and Lemaître and the part appurtenant of M. E. Rigal’s work on 16th century drama in France, see Gustave Lanson’s “Corneille” in theGrands Écrivains français(1898); F. Bouquet’sPoints obscurs et nouveaux de la vie de Pierre Corneille(1888);Corneille inconnu, by J. Levallois (1876); J. Lemaître,Corneille et la poétique d’Aristote(1888); J. B. Segall,Corneille and the Spanish Drama(1902); and the recently discovered and printedFragments sur Pierre et Thomas Corneilleof Alfred de Vigny (1905). On theCidquarrel E. H. Chardon’sVie de Rotrou(1884) bears mainly on a whole series of documents which appeared at Rouen in the proceedings of theSociété des bibliophiles normandsduring the years 1891-1894. The best-known English criticism, that of Hallam in hisLiterature of Europe, is inadequate. The translations of separate plays are very numerous, but of the completeThéâtreonly one version (into Italian) is recorded by the French editors. Fontenelle tells us that his uncle had translations of theCidin every European tongue but Turkish and Slavonic, and M. Picot’s book apprises us that the latter want, at any rate, is now supplied. Corneille has suffered less than some other writers from the attribution of spurious works. Besides a tragedy,Sylla, the chief piece thus assigned isL’Occasion perdue recouverte, a rather loose tale in verse. Internal evidence by no means fathers it on Corneille, and all external testimony is against it. It has never been included in Corneille’s works. It is curious that a translation of Statius (Thebaid, bk. iii.), an author of whom Corneille was extremely fond, though known to have been written, printed and published, has entirely dropped out of sight. Three verses quoted by Ménage are all we possess.
Bibliography.—The subject of the bibliography of Corneille was treated in the most exhaustive manner by M. E. Picot in hisBibliographie Cornélienne(Paris, 1875-1876). Less elaborate, but still ample information may be found in J. A. Taschereau’sVieand in M. Marty-Laveaux’s edition of theWorks. The individual plays were usually printed a year or two after their first appearance: but these dates have been subjected to confusion and to controversy, and it seems better to refer for them to the works quoted and to be quoted. The chief collected editions in the poet’s lifetime were those of 1644, 1648, 1652, 1660 (with important corrections), 1664 and 1682, which gives the definitive text. In 1692 T. Corneille published a completeThéâtrein 5 vols. 12mo. Numerous editions appeared in the early part of the 18th century, that of 1740 (6 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam) containing theŒuvres diversesas well as the plays. Several editions are recorded between this and that of Voltaire (12 vols. 8vo; Geneva, 1764, 1776, 8 vols. 4to), whoseCommentaireshave often been reprinted separately. In the year IX. (1801) appeared an edition of theWorkswith Voltaire’s commentary and criticisms thereon by Palissot (12 vols. 8vo, Paris). Since this the editions have been extremely numerous. Those chiefly to be remarked are the following. Lefèvre’s (12 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1854), well printed and with a useful variorum commentary, lacks bibliographical information and is disfigured by hideous engravings. Of Taschereau’s, in theBibliothèque elzévirienne, only two volumes were published. Lahure’s appeared in 5 vols. (1857-1862) and 7 vols. (1864-1866). The edition of Ch. Marty-Laveaux in Regnier’sGrands Écrivains de la France(1862-1868), in 12 vols. 8vo, is still the standard. In appearance and careful editing it leaves nothing to desire, containing the entire works, a lexicon, full bibliographical information, and an album of illustrations of the poet’s places of residence, his arms, some title-pages of his plays, facsimiles of his writings, &c. Nothing is wanting but variorum comments, which Lefèvre’s edition supplies. Fontenelle’s life of his uncle is the chief original authority on that subject, but Taschereau’sHistoire de la vie et des ouvrages de P. Corneille(1st ed. 1829, 2nd in theBibl. elzévirienne, 1855) is the standard work. Its information has been corrected and augmented in various later publications, but not materially. Of the exceedingly numerous writings relative to Corneille we may mention theRecueil de dissertations sur plusieurs tragédies de Corneille et de Racineof the abbé Granet (Paris, 1740), the criticisms already alluded to of Voltaire, La Harpe and Palissot, the well-known work of Guizot, first published asVie de Corneillein 1813 and revised asCorneille et son tempsin 1852, and the essays, repeated in hisPortraitslittéraires, inPort-Royal, and in theNouveaux Lundisof Sainte-Beuve. More recently, besides essays by MM. Brunetière, Faguet and Lemaître and the part appurtenant of M. E. Rigal’s work on 16th century drama in France, see Gustave Lanson’s “Corneille” in theGrands Écrivains français(1898); F. Bouquet’sPoints obscurs et nouveaux de la vie de Pierre Corneille(1888);Corneille inconnu, by J. Levallois (1876); J. Lemaître,Corneille et la poétique d’Aristote(1888); J. B. Segall,Corneille and the Spanish Drama(1902); and the recently discovered and printedFragments sur Pierre et Thomas Corneilleof Alfred de Vigny (1905). On theCidquarrel E. H. Chardon’sVie de Rotrou(1884) bears mainly on a whole series of documents which appeared at Rouen in the proceedings of theSociété des bibliophiles normandsduring the years 1891-1894. The best-known English criticism, that of Hallam in hisLiterature of Europe, is inadequate. The translations of separate plays are very numerous, but of the completeThéâtreonly one version (into Italian) is recorded by the French editors. Fontenelle tells us that his uncle had translations of theCidin every European tongue but Turkish and Slavonic, and M. Picot’s book apprises us that the latter want, at any rate, is now supplied. Corneille has suffered less than some other writers from the attribution of spurious works. Besides a tragedy,Sylla, the chief piece thus assigned isL’Occasion perdue recouverte, a rather loose tale in verse. Internal evidence by no means fathers it on Corneille, and all external testimony is against it. It has never been included in Corneille’s works. It is curious that a translation of Statius (Thebaid, bk. iii.), an author of whom Corneille was extremely fond, though known to have been written, printed and published, has entirely dropped out of sight. Three verses quoted by Ménage are all we possess.
(G. Sa.)
CORNEILLE, THOMAS(1625-1709), French dramatist, was born at Rouen on the 20th of August 1625, being nearly twenty years younger than his brother, the great Corneille. His skill in verse-making seems to have shown itself early, as at the age of fifteen he composed a piece in Latin which was represented by his fellow-pupils at the Jesuits’ college of Rouen. His first French play,Les Engagements du hasard, was acted in 1647.Le Feint Astrologue, imitated from the Spanish, and imitated by Dryden, came next year. At his brother’s death he succeeded to his vacant chair in the Academy. He then turned his attention to philology, producing a new edition of theRemarquesof C. F. Vaugelas in 1687, and in 1694 a dictionary of technical terms, intended to supplement that of the Academy. A complete translation of Ovid’sMetamorphoses(he had published six books with theHeroic Epistlessome years previously) followed in 1697. In 1704 he lost his sight and was constituted a “veteran,” a dignity which preserved to him the privileges, while it exempted him from the duties, of an academician. But he did not allow his misfortune to put a stop to his work, and in 1708 produced a largeDictionnaire universel géographique et historiquein three volumes folio. This was his last labour. He died at Les Andelys on the 8th of December 1709, aged eighty-four. It has been the custom to speak of Thomas Corneille as of one who, but for the name he bore, would merit no notice. This is by no means the case; on the contrary, he is rather to be commiserated for his connexion with a brother who outshone him as he would have outshone almost any one. But the two were strongly attached to one another, and practically lived in common. Of his forty-two plays (this is the utmost number assigned to him) the last edition of his complete works contains only thirty-two, but he wrote several in conjunction with other authors. Two are usually reprinted as his masterpieces at the end of his brother’s selected works. These areAriane(1672) and theComte d’ Essex, in the former of which Rachel attained success. But ofLaodice,Camma,Stilicaand some other pieces, Pierre Corneille himself said that “he wished he had written them,” and he was not wont to speak lightly.Camma(1661, on the same story as Tennyson’sCup) especially deserves notice. Thomas Corneille is in many ways remarkable in the literary gossip-history of his time. HisTimocrateboasted of the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any play in the century. ForLa Devineressehe and his coadjutor de Visé (1638-1710, founder of theMercure galant, to which Thomas contributed) received above 6000 livres, the largest sum known to have been thus paid. Lastly, one of his pieces (Le Baron des Fondrières) contests the honour of being the first which was hissed off the stage.
There is a monograph,Thomas Corneille, sa vie et ses ouvrages(1892), by G. Reynier. See also theFragments inédits de critique sur Pierre et Thomas Corneilleof Alfred de Vigny, published in 1905.
There is a monograph,Thomas Corneille, sa vie et ses ouvrages(1892), by G. Reynier. See also theFragments inédits de critique sur Pierre et Thomas Corneilleof Alfred de Vigny, published in 1905.
(G. Sa.)
CORNELIA(2nd cent. B.C.), daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder, mother of the Gracchi and of Sempronia, the wife of Scipio Africanus the Younger. On the death of her husband, refusing numerous offers of marriage, she devoted herself to the education of her twelve children. She was so devoted to her sons Tiberius and Gaius that it was even asserted that she was concerned in the death of her son-in-law Scipio, who by his achievements had eclipsed the fame of the Gracchi, and was said to have approved of the murder of Tiberius. When asked to show her jewels she presented her sons, and on her death a statue was erected to her memory inscribed, “Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi.” After the murder of her second son Gaius she retired to Misenum, where she devoted herself to Greek and Latin literature, and to the society of men of letters. She was a highly educated woman, and her letters were celebrated for their beauty of style. The genuineness of the two fragments of a letter from her to her son Gaius, printed in some editions of Cornelius Nepos, is disputed.
See L. Mercklin,De Corneliae vita(1844), of no great value; J. Sörgel,Cornelia, die Mutter der Gracchen(1868), a short popular sketch.
See L. Mercklin,De Corneliae vita(1844), of no great value; J. Sörgel,Cornelia, die Mutter der Gracchen(1868), a short popular sketch.
CORNELIUS,pope, was elected in 251 during the lull in the persecution of the emperor Decius. Two years afterwards, under the emperor Gallus, he was exiled to Centumcellae (Civita Vecchia), where he died. He was very intimate with St Cyprian, and is commemorated with him on the 16th of September, which is not, however, the anniversary of his death. He died in June 253.
CORNELIUS, CARL AUGUST PETER(1824-1874), German musician and poet, son of an actor at Wiesbaden, grandson of the engraver Ignaz Cornelius, and nephew of Cornelius the painter, was born at Mainz on the 24th of December 1824. In his childhood his bent was towards languages, but his musical gifts were carefully cultivated and he learned to sing and to play the violin. Cornelius the elder, anxious for his son to become an actor, himself taught the boy the elements of the art. These theatrical studies, however, were interrupted early by a visit paid by Peter Cornelius to England as second violin in the Mainz orchestra. On returning home young Cornelius made his stage debut as John Cook inKean. But after two more appearances, as the lover in the comedyDas war Ichand as Perin in Moreto’sDonna Diana, he practically abandoned the stage for music, his idea being to become a comic opera composer. In 1843 his father died. Hitherto Cornelius’s musical studies had been unsystematic. Now opportunity served to remedy this, for his relative, Cornelius the painter, summoned him in 1844 to Berlin, and enabled him a year later to become a pupil of Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn (1799-1858), counterpoint and theory generally being worked at laboriously. After leaving Dehn, Cornelius proved his independence by writing a trio in A minor, a quartet in C, as well as two comic opera texts. In 1847 he returned to Dehn and immediately composed an enormous mass of music, including a second trio, 30 vocal canons, several sonatas, a Mass, a Stabat Mater; he also wrote a number of translations of old French poems, which are classics of their kind. In 1852 he first came in touch with Liszt, through his uncle’s instrumentality. At Weimar, whither he went in 1852, he heard Berlioz’s delightfulBenvenuto Cellini, a work which ultimately exercised great influence over him. For the time, however, he devoted himself, on Liszt’s advice, to further Church compositions, the influence of the Church on him at that time being so great that he applied, but vainly, for a place in a Jesuit college. Still his mind was bent on the production of a comic opera, but the composition was long delayed by the work of translating the prefaces for Liszt’s symphonic poems and the texts of works by Berlioz and Rubinstein. Between October 1855 and September in the following year, Cornelius wrote the book of theBarbier von Bagdad, and on December 15, 1858, the opera was produced at Weimar under Liszt, and hissed off the stage. Thereupon Liszt resigned his post, and shortly afterwards Cornelius went to Vienna and Munich, and still later came very much under Wagner’s influence. Cornelius’sCidwas completed and produced at Weimar in 1865. For the last nine years of his life (1865-1874)Cornelius was occupied with his operaGunlödand other compositions, besides writing ably and abundantly on Wagner’s music-dramas. In 1867 he became teacher of rhetoric and harmony at the Musikschule, Munich, and married Berthe Jung. He died on the 26th of October 1874. Not the least of Cornelius’s many claims to fame was his remarkable versatility. Many of his original poems, as well as his translations from the French, rank high. Among his songs, special mention may be made of the lovely “Weihnachtslieder,” and of the “Vätergruft,” an unaccompanied vocal work for baritone solo and choir.
CORNELIUS, PETER VON(1784-1867), German painter, was born in Düsseldorf in 1784. His father, who was inspector of the Düsseldorf gallery, died in 1799, and the young Cornelius was stimulated to extraordinary exertions. In a letter to the Count Raczynski he says, “It fell to the lot of an elder brother and myself to watch over the interests of a numerous family. It was at this time that it was attempted to persuade my mother that it would be better for me to devote myself to the trade of a goldsmith than to continue to pursue painting—in the first place, in consequence of the time necessary to qualify me for the art, and in the next, because there were already so many painters. My dear mother, however, rejected all this advice, and I felt myself impelled onward by an uncontrollable enthusiasm, to which the confidence of my mother gave new strength, which was supported by the continual fear that I should be removed from the study of that art I loved so much.” His earliest work of importance was the decoration of the choir of the church of St Quirinus at Neuss. At the age of twenty-six he produced his designs fromFaust. On October 14, 1811, he arrived in Rome, where he soon became one of the most promising of that brotherhood of young German painters which included Overbeck, Schadow, Veit, Schnorr and Ludwig Vogel (1788-1879),—a fraternity (some of whom selected a ruinous convent for their home) who were banded together for resolute study and mutual criticism. Out of this association came the men who, though they were ridiculed at the time, were destined to found a new German school of art.
At Rome Cornelius participated, with other members of his fraternity, in the decoration of the Casa Bartoldi and the Villa Massimi, and while thus employed he was also engaged upon designs for the illustration of the Nibelungenlied. From Rome he was called to Düsseldorf to remodel the Academy, and to Munich by the then crown-prince of Bavaria, afterwards Louis I., to direct the decorations for the Glyptothek. Cornelius, however, soon found that attention to such widely separated duties was incompatible with the just performance of either, and most inconvenient to himself; eventually, therefore, he resigned his post at Düsseldorf to throw himself completely and thoroughly into those works for which he had been commissioned by the crown-prince. He therefore left Düsseldorf for Munich, where he was joined by those of his pupils who elected to follow and to assist him. At the death of Director Langer, 1824-1825, he became director of the Munich Academy.
The fresco decorations of the Ludwigskirche, which were for the most part designed and executed by Cornelius, are perhaps the most important mural works of modern times. The large fresco of the Last Judgment, over the high altar in that church, measures 62 ft. in height by 38 ft. in width. The frescoes of the Creator, the Nativity, and the Crucifixion in the same building are also upon a large scale. Amongst his other great works in Munich may be included his decorations in the Pinakothek and in the Glyptothek; those in the latter building, in the hall of the gods and the hall of the hero-myths, are perhaps the best known. About the year 1839-1840 he left Munich for Berlin to proceed with that series of cartoons, from the Apocalypse, for the frescoes for which he had been commissioned by Frederick William IV., and which were intended to decorate the Campo Santo or royal mausoleum. These were his final works.
Cornelius, as an oil painter, possessed but little technical skill, nor do his works exhibit any instinctive appreciation of colour. Even as a fresco painter his manipulative power was not great. And in critically examining the execution in colour of some of his magnificent designs, one cannot help feeling that he was, in this respect, unable to do them full justice. Cornelius and his associates endeavoured to follow in their works the spirit of the Italian painters. But the Italian strain is to a considerable extent modified by the Dürer heritage. This Dürer influence is manifest in a tendency to overcrowding in composition, in a degree of attenuation in the proportions of, and a poverty of contour in, the nude figure, and also in a leaning to the selection of Gothic forms for draperies. These peculiarities are even noticeable in Cornelius’s principal work of the “Last Judgment,” in the Ludwigskirche in Munich. The attenuation and want of flexibility of contour in the nude are perhaps most conspicuous in his frescoes of classical subjects in the Glyptothek, especially in that representing the contention for the body of Patroclus. But notwithstanding these peculiarities there is always in his works a grandeur and nobleness of conception, as all must acknowledge who have inspected his designs for the Ludwigskirche, for the Campo Santo, &c. If he were not dexterous in the handling of the brush, he could conceive and design a subject with masterly purpose. If he had an imperfect eye for colour, in the Venetian, the Flemish, or the English sense, he had vast mental foresight in directing the German school of painting; and his favourite motto ofDeutschland über allesindicates the direction and the strength of his patriotism. Karl Hermann was one of Cornelius’s earliest and most esteemed scholars, a man of simple and fervent nature, painstaking to the utmost, a very type of the finest German student nature; Kaulbach and Adam Eberle were also amongst his scholars. Every public edifice in Munich and other German cities which were embellished with frescoes, became, as in Italy, a school of art of the very best kind; for the decoration of a public building begets a practical knowledge of design. The development of this institution of scholarship in Munich was a work of time. The cartoons for the Glyptothek were all by Cornelius’s own hand. In the Pinakothek his sketches and small drawings sufficed; but in the Ludwigskirche the invention even of some of the subjects was entrusted to his scholar Hermann.
To comprehend and appreciate thoroughly the magnitude of the work which Cornelius accomplished for Germany, we must remember that at the beginning of the 19th century Germany had no national school of art. Germany was in painting and sculpture behind all the rest of Europe. Yet in less than half a century Cornelius founded a great school, revived mural painting, and turned the gaze of the art world towards Munich. The German revival of mural painting had its effect upon England, as well as upon other European nations, and led to the famous cartoon competitions held in Westminster Hall, and ultimately to the partial decoration of the Houses of Parliament. When the latter work was in contemplation, Cornelius, in response to invitations, visited England (November 1841). His opinion was in every way favourable to the carrying out of the project, and even in respect of the durability of fresco in the climate of England. Cornelius, in his teaching, always inculcated a close and rigorous study of nature, but he understood by the study of nature something more than what is ordinarily implied by that expression, something more than constantly making studies from life; he meant the study of nature with an inquiring and scientific spirit. “Study nature,” was the advice he once gave, “in order that you may become acquainted with itsessentialforms.”
The personal appearance of Cornelius could not but convey to those who were fortunate enough to come into contact with him the impression that he was a man of an energetic, firm and resolute nature. He was below the middle height and squarely built. There was evidence of power about his broad and overhanging brow, in his eagle eyes and firmly gripped attenuated lips, which no one with the least discernment could misinterpret. Yet there was a sense of humour and a geniality which drew men towards him; and towards those young artists who sought his teaching and his criticism he always exhibited a calm patience.
See Förster,Peter von Cornelius(Berlin, 1874).
See Förster,Peter von Cornelius(Berlin, 1874).
(W. C. T.)
CORNELL UNIVERSITY,one of the largest of American institutions of higher education, situated at Ithaca, New York. Its campus is finely situated on a hill above the main part of the city; it lies between Fall Creek and Cascadilla Creek (each of which has cut a deep gorge), and commands a beautiful view of the valley and of Lake Cayuga. The university is co-educational (since 1872), and comprises the graduate school, with 306 students in 1909; the college of arts and sciences (902 students); the college of law (225 students), established in 1887; the medical college (217 students, of whom 29 were taking freshman or sophomore work in Ithaca, where all women entering the college must pursue the first two years of work)—this college was established in 1898 by the gift of Oliver Hazard Payne, and has buildings opposite Bellevue hospital on First Avenue and 28th Street, New York city; the New York state veterinary college (94 students), established by the state legislature in 1894; the New York state college of agriculture (413 students), established as such by the state legislature in 1904,—the teaching of agriculture had from the beginning been an important part of the university’s work,—with an agricultural experiment station, established in 1887 by the Federal government; the college of architecture (133 students); the college of civil engineering (569 students); and the Sibley College of mechanical engineering and mechanic arts (1163 students), named in honour of Hiram Sibley (1807-1888), a banker of Rochester, N.Y., who gave $180,000 for its endowment and equipment and whose son Hiram W. Sibley gave $130,000 to the college. A state college of forestry was established in connexion with the university in 1898, but was discontinued after several years. The total enrolment of regular students in 1909 was 3980; in addition, 841 students were enrolled in the 1908 summer session (which is especially for teachers) and 364 in the “short winter course in agriculture” in 1909. Nearly all the states and territories of the United States and thirty-two foreign countries were represented—e.g. there were 33 students from China, 12 from the Argentine Republic, 6 from India, 10 from Japan, 10 from Mexico, 5 from Peru, &c.
In the W. central part of the campus is the university library building, which, with an endowment (1891) of $300,000 for the purchase of books and periodicals, was the gift of Henry Williams Sage (1814-1897), second president of the board of trustees; in 1906 it received an additional endowment fund of about $500,000 by the bequest of Prof. Willard Fiske. The building, of light grey Ohio sandstone, houses the general library (300,050 volumes in 1909), the seminary and department libraries (7284 volumes), and the forestry library (1007 volumes). Among the special collections of the general library are the classical library of Charles Anthon, the philological library of Franz Bopp, the Goldwin Smith library (1869), the White architectural and historical libraries, the Spinoza collection presented by Andrew D. White (1894), the library of Jared Sparks, the Samuel J. May collection of works on the history of slavery, the Zarncke library, especially rich in Germanic philology and literature, the Eugene Schuyler collection of Slavic folk-lore, literature and history, the Willard Fiske Rhaeto-Romanic, Icelandic, Dante and Petrarch collections, and the Herbert H. Smith collection of works on Latin America (in addition there are college and department libraries—that of the college of law numbers 38,735 volumes—bringing the total to 353,638 bound volumes in 1909). Among the other buildings are: Morse Hall, Franklin Hall, Sibley College, Lincoln Hall (housing the college of civil engineering), Goldwin Smith Hall (for language and history), Stimson Hall (given by Dean Sage to the medical college), Boardman Hall (housing the college of law), Morrill Hall (containing the psychological laboratory), McGraw Hall and White Hall—these, with the library, forming the quadrangle; S. of the quadrangle, Sage chapel (with beautiful interior decorations), Barnes Hall (the home of the Cornell University Christian Association), Sage College (a dormitory for women), and the armoury and gymnasium; E. of the quadrangle, the Rockefeller Hall of Physics (1906) and the New York State College of Agriculture (completed in 1907); and S.E. of the quadrangle the New York State Veterinary College and the Fuertes Observatory. The university is well-equipped with laboratories, the psychological laboratory, the laboratories of Sibley college and the hydraulic laboratory of the college of civil engineering being especially noteworthy; the last is on Fall Creek, where a curved concrete masonry dam has been built, forming Beebe Lake. East of the campus is the university playground and athletic field (55 acres), built with funds raised from the alumni. Cayuga Lake furnishes opportunity for rowing, and the Cornell crews are famous. During their first two years all undergraduates, unless properly excused, must take a prescribed amount of physical exercise. Normally the first year’s exercise for male students is military drill under the direction of a U.S. army officer detailed as commandant.
The reputation of the university is particularly high in mechanical engineering; Sibley college was built up primarily under Prof. Robert Henry Thurston (1839-1903), a well-known engineer, its director in 1885-1903. The college includes the following departments: machine design and construction, experimental engineering, power engineering, and electrical engineering. The “Susan Linn Sage School of Philosophy,” so called since the gift (1891) of $200,000 from Henry W. Sage in memory of his wife, issuesThe Philosophical ReviewandCornell Studies in Philosophy, and is well known for the psychological laboratory investigations under Prof. E. B. Titchener (b. 1867). Equally well known are the college of agriculture under Prof. Liberty Hyde Bailey (b. 1858); the “Cornell School” of Latin grammarians, led first by Prof. W. G. Hale and then by Prof. C. E. Bennett; the department of entomology under Prof. J. H. Comstock (b. 1849), the department of physics under Prof. E. L. Nichols (b. 1854), and other departments. The university publishesCornell Studies in Classical Philology, theJournal of Physical Chemistry, thePhysical Review,Publications of Cornell University Medical College, various publications of the college of agriculture, andStudies in History and Political Science(of “The President White School of History and Political Science”). Among the student publications areThe Cornell Era(1868, weekly),The Cornell Daily Sun(1880),The Sibley Journal of Engineering(1882),The Cornell Magazine, a literary monthly, andThe Cornell Widow(1892), a comic tri-weekly. The regular annual tuition fee is $100, but in medicine, in architecture, and in civil and mechanical engineering it is $150. In the veterinary and agricultural colleges there are no tuition fees for residents of New York state. There are 150 free-tuition state scholarships (one for each of the state assembly districts), and, in addition, there are 36 undergraduate university scholarships (annual value, $200) tenable for two years, and 23 fellowships and 17 graduate scholarships (annual value, $300-600 each). In the college of arts and sciences the elective system, with certain restrictions, obtains.
The university has always been absolutely non-sectarian; its charter prescribes that “persons of every religious denomination, or of no religious denomination, shall be equally eligible to all offices and appointments” and that “at no time shall a majority of the board (of trustees) be of one religious sect or of no religious sect.” There is, however, an active Christian Association and religious services—provided for by the Dean Sage Preachership Endowment—are conducted in Sage chapel by eminent clergymen representing various sects and denominations.
The affairs of Cornell university are under the administration of a board which must consist of forty trustees, of whom ten are elected by the alumni. The following areex officiomembers of the board: the president of the university, the librarian of the Cornell Library (in Ithaca), the governor and the lieutenant-governor of the state, the speaker of the state assembly, the state commissioners of education and of agriculture, and the president of the state agricultural society. The internal government is in the hands of the university faculty (which consists of the president, the professors and the assistant professors, and has jurisdiction over matters concerning the university as a whole), and of the special faculties, which consist of the president, the professors, the assistant professors, and the instructors ofthe several colleges, and which have jurisdiction over distinctively collegiate matters.
In 1909 the invested funds of the university amounted to about $8,594,300, yielding an annual income of about $428,800; the income from state and nation was about $232,050, and from tuition fees about $336,100; the campus and buildings were valued at about $4,263,400, and the Library, collections, apparatus, &c. at about $1,826,100.
The university was incorporated by the legislature of New York state on the 27th of April 1865, and was named in honour of Ezra Cornell,1its principal benefactor. In 1864 Cornell, at the suggestion of Andrew D. White, his fellow member of the state senate, decided to found a university of a new type—which should be broad and liberal in its scope, should be absolutely non-sectarian, and which should recognize and meet the growing need for practical training and adequate instruction in the sciences as well as in the humanities. He offered to the state as an endowment $500,000 (with 200 acres of land) on condition that the state add to this fund the proceeds of the sales of public lands granted to it by the Morrill Act of 1862 for “the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college, where the leading object shall be ... to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.... “2The charter provided that “such other branches of science and knowledge may be embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining to the university as the trustees may deem useful and proper,” and Ezra Cornell expressed his own ideal in the oft-quoted words: “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” The opposition to Cornell’s plan was bitter, especially on the part of denominational schools and press, but incorporation was secured, and the trustees first met on the 5th of September 1865. Andrew D. White was elected president and the entire educational scheme was left to him. Dr White’s ideals in part were: a closer union between the advanced and the general educational system of the state; liberal instruction of the industrial classes; increased stress on technical instruction; unsectarian control; “a course in history and political and social science adapted to the practical needs of men worthily ambitious in public affairs”; a more thorough study of modern languages and literatures, especially English; the “steady effort to abolish monastic government and pedantic instruction”; the elective system of studies; and the stimulus of non-resident lecturers. On the 7th of October 1868 the Cornell University opened with some confusion due to the condition of the campus, and to the presence of 412 would-be pupils, many of whom expected to “work their way through.” The brilliance of the faculty and especially of its non-resident members (including J. R. Lowell, Louis Agassiz, G. W. Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Theodore D. Dwight, and Goldwin Smith, who was a resident professor in 1866-1869), was to a degree over-shadowed during the fifteen years 1868-1882 by financial difficulties. But Ezra Cornell himself paid many salaries during early years, and provided much valuable equipment solely at his own expense; and because the state’s land scrip was selling too low to secure an adequate endowment for the University, in 1866 he bought the land scrip yet unsold (819,920 acres)3by the state at the rate of sixty cents an acre on the understanding that all profits, in excess of the purchase money, should constitute a separate endowment fund to which the restrictions in the Morrill Act should not apply; and in 1866-1867 he “located” 512,000 acres in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas. In November 1874 he transferred these lands, which had cost him $576,953 more than he had received from them, to the university. This actual deficit on the lands owned by the university steadily increased up to 1881, when, after the trustees had refused (in 1880) an offer of $1,250,000 for 275,000 acres of pine lands, they sold about 140,600 acres for $2,319,296; ultimately 401,296 acres of the land turned over to the university by Cornell were sold, bringing a net return of about $4,800,000. The university was put on a sound financial footing; the number of students, less in 1881-1882 than in 1868 at the opening of the university, again increased, so that it was 585 in 1884-1885, and 2120 in 1897-1898. The presidents of the university have been: Andrew Dickson White, 1865-1885; Charles Kendall Adams, 1885-1892; and Jacob Gould Schurman.
1Ezra Cornell (1807-1874) was born in Westchester county, New York, on the 11th of January 1807. His parents were Quakers from Massachusetts. He received a scanty education; worked as a carpenter in Syracuse and as a machinist in Ithaca; became interested (about 1842) in the development of the electric telegraph; and after unsuccessful or over-expensive attempts to ground the telegraph wires in 1844 solved the difficulty by stringing them on poles. He organized many telegraph construction companies, was one of the founders of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and accumulated a large fortune. He was a delegate to the first national convention of the Republican party (1856) and was a member of the New York assembly in 1862-1863 and of the state senate in 1864-1867. He founded a public library (dedicated in 1866) in Ithaca, and died there on the 9th of December 1874. Consult Alonzo B. Cornell,True and Firm: A Biography of Ezra Cornell(New York, 1884).2New York’s share amounted to 990,000 acres. The Morrill Act prescribed that the proceeds from the sale of this land should not be used for the purchase, erection or maintenance of any building or buildings.3He had previously—in 1865—bought scrip for 100,000 acres for $50,000, on the understanding that all profits which might accrue from the sale of the land should be paid to the university.
1Ezra Cornell (1807-1874) was born in Westchester county, New York, on the 11th of January 1807. His parents were Quakers from Massachusetts. He received a scanty education; worked as a carpenter in Syracuse and as a machinist in Ithaca; became interested (about 1842) in the development of the electric telegraph; and after unsuccessful or over-expensive attempts to ground the telegraph wires in 1844 solved the difficulty by stringing them on poles. He organized many telegraph construction companies, was one of the founders of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and accumulated a large fortune. He was a delegate to the first national convention of the Republican party (1856) and was a member of the New York assembly in 1862-1863 and of the state senate in 1864-1867. He founded a public library (dedicated in 1866) in Ithaca, and died there on the 9th of December 1874. Consult Alonzo B. Cornell,True and Firm: A Biography of Ezra Cornell(New York, 1884).
2New York’s share amounted to 990,000 acres. The Morrill Act prescribed that the proceeds from the sale of this land should not be used for the purchase, erection or maintenance of any building or buildings.
3He had previously—in 1865—bought scrip for 100,000 acres for $50,000, on the understanding that all profits which might accrue from the sale of the land should be paid to the university.
CORNET,a word having two distinct significations and two etymological histories, both, however, ultimately referable to the same Latin origin:—
1. (Fr.cornette, dim. ofcorne, from Lat.cornu, a horn), a small standard, formerly carried by a troop of cavalry, and similar to the pennon in form, narrowing gradually to a point. The term was then applied to the body of cavalry which carried a cornet. In this sense it is used in the military literature of the 16th century and, less frequently, in that of the 17th. Before the close of the 16th century, however, the world had also come to mean a junior officer of a troop of cavalry who, like the “ensign” of foot, carried the colour. The spelling “coronet” occurs in the 16th century, and has perhaps contributed to obscure the derivation of “colonel” or “coronel.” The rank of “cornet” remained in the British cavalry until the general adoption of the term “second lieutenant.” In the Boer republics “field-cornets” were local subordinate officers of the commando (q.v.), the unit of the military forces. Elected for three years by the wards into which the electoral districts were divided, they had administrative as well as military duties, and acted as magistrates, inspectors of natives and registration officers for their respective wards. In 1907, the “field-cornet” system was re-established in the Transvaal; the new duties of the “field-cornets” are those performed by assistant magistrates, viz. petty jurisdiction, registration of voters, births and deaths, the carrying out of regulations as to animal diseases, and maintenance of roads. The “field-cornets” are appointed by government for three years.
2. (Fr.cornet, Ital.cornetto, Med. Lat.cornetum, a bugle, from Lat.cornu, a horn), in music, the name of two varieties of wind instruments (see below), and also of certain stops of the organ. The great organ “solo cornet” was a mixture or compound stop, having either 5, 4, or 3 ranges of pipes; occasionally it was placed on a separate soundboard, when it was known as a “mounted cornet.” The “echo cornet” was a similar stop, but softer and enclosed in a box. In German and Dutch organs the term cornet is sometimes applied to a pedal reed stop.
(a)CornetorCornett(Fr.cornet,cornet à bouquin; Ger.Zinck,Zincken; Ital.cornetto) is the name given to a family of wood wind instruments, now obsolete, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece and a conical bore without a bell, and differing entirely from the modern cornet à pistons. The old cornets were of two kinds, the straight and the curved, characterized by radical differences in construction. There were two very different kinds of straight cornets (Ger.gerader Zinck, Ital.cornetto direttoorrecto), the one most commonly used having a detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece similar to that of the trumpet, while the other was made to all appearance without mouthpiece, there being not even a moulded rim at the end of the tube tobreak the rigid straight line. Examination of the tube, however, reveals the secret of the characteristic sweet tone of this latter kind of cornet; unsuspected inside the top of the tube is cut out of the thickness of the wood a mouthpiece, not cup-shaped, but like a funnel similar to that of the French horn, which merges gradually into the bore of the instrument. This mode of construction, together with the narrower bore adopted, greatly influenced the timbre of the instrument, whose softer tone was thus due mainly to the substitution of the funnel for the sharp angle of incidence at the bottom of the cup mouthpiece known as the throat (seeMouthpiece), where it communicates with the tube. It is this sharp angle, which in the other cornets with detachable mouthpiece, causes the column of air to break, producing a shrill quality of tone, while the wider bore and slightly rough walls of the tube account for the harshness. In Germany the sweet-toned cornet was known asstillerorsanfter Zinck, and in Italy ascornetto muto(fig. 1), while in France the instruments with detachable mouthpiece were distinguished by theadditionofà bouquin(= with mouthpiece). The curved cornet (Ger.krummer ZinckorStadtkalb; Ital.cornetto curvo) could not for obvious reasons have the bore pierced through a single piece of wood; the channel for the vibrating column of air was, therefore, hollowed out of two pieces of wood, the diameter increasing from the mouthpiece to the lower end. The two pieces of wood thus prepared were joined together with glue and covered with leather, the outer surface of the tube being finished off in octagonal shape. The separate mouthpiece, made indifferently of wood, horn, ivory or metal,1analogous to that of the trumpet, was distinctly cup-shaped and fixed by a tenon to the upper extremity of the pipe. The primitive instrument was an animal’s horn.
Pipes of such short length give only, besides the first or fundamental, the second and sometimes the third note of the harmonic series. Thus a pipe that has for its fundamental A will, if the pressure of breath and tension of the lips be steadily increased, give the octave A and the twelfth E. In order to connect the first and second harmonics diatonically, the length of the pipe was progressively shortened by boring lateral holes through the tube for the fingers to cover. The successive opening of these holes furnished the instrumentalist with the different intervals of the scale, six holes sufficing for this purpose:
The fundamental was thus connected with its octave by all the degrees of a diatonic scale, which became chromatic by the help of cross-fingering and the greater or less tension of the lips stretched as vibrating reeds across the opening of the mouthpiece. This increased compass of twenty-seven notes obtained by cross-fingering is very clearly shown in a table by Eisel.2The fingering was completed by a seventh hole, which had for its object the production of the octave without the necessity of closing all the holes in order to produce the second note of the harmonic series. The first complete octave, thus obtained by a succession of fundamental notes, was easily octaved by a stronger pressure of breath and tension of the lips across the mouthpiece, and thus the ordinary limits of the compass of aZinckor cornet could be extended to a fifteenth. Whether straight or curved it was pierced laterally with seven holes, six through the front, and the seventh, that nearest the mouthpiece, through the back. The first three holes were usually covered with the third, second and first fingers of the right hand, the next four with the third, second and first fingers and the thumb of the left hand. But some instrumentalists inverted the position of the hands. Virdung3shows, besides thecornetto recto, a kind ofZinckmade of an animal’s horn with only four holes, three in the front of the pipe and one at the back. Such an instrument as this had naturally a very limited compass, since these four holes only sufficed to produce the intermediate notes between the second and third proper tones of the harmonic scale, the lower octave comprised between the first and second remaining incomplete; by overblowing, however, the next octave would be obtained in addition.
At the beginning of the 17th century Praetorius4represents theZinckenas a complete family comprising: (1) the littleZinckwith the lowest note, (2) the ordinaryZinckwith the lowest note, (3) the greatZinck,cornonorcorno torto, a great cornet in the shape of anwith the lowest note. In France5the family was composed of the following instruments:(1) Thedessusor treble cornet with the lowest note;(2) thehaute-contreor alto cornet with the lowest note;(3) thetailleor tenor cornet with the lowest noteand thebasseor bass orpédalle6cornet with the lowest note.The cornets of the lowest pitch were sometimes furnished with an open key which, when closed, lengthened the tube, and extended the compass downwards by a note. Mersenne figures acornonwith a key.During the middle ages these instruments were in such favour that an important part was given to them in all instrumental combinations. At Dresden,7between 1647 and 1651, the Kapelle of the electoral prince of Saxony included two cornets, the bass being supplied by the trombone. Monteverde introduced two cornets in the 3rd and 4th acts of hisOrfeo(1607). In France the charges for theChapelle-Musiqueof the kings of France for the year 1619 contain two entries of the sum of 450livres tournois, salary paid to one Marcel Cayty,joueur de cornet, a post held by him from 1604 until at least 1631, when another cornet player, Jean Daneau, is also mentioned.8In Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries,Zinckenwere used with trombones in the churches to accompany the chorales. There are examples of this use of the instrument in the sacred cantatas of J. S. Bach, where the cornet is added to the upper voice parts to strengthen them. Johann Mattheson, conductor of the opera atHamburg, writing on the orchestra in 17139gives a description of theZinckas a member of the orchestra, but in 1739,10in his work on the perfect conductor, he deplores the decrease of its popularity in church music, from which it seems to be banished as useless. Gluck was the last composer of importance who scored for the cornet, as for instance inOrfeo, inParide ed Elena, inAlcesteand inArmide, &c. The great vogue of the curved cornet is not to be accounted for by its musical qualities, for it had a hard, hoarse, piercing sound, and it failed utterly in truth of intonation; these natural defects, moreover, could only be modified with great difficulty. Mersenne’s eulogium of thedessus, then more employed than the other cornets, can only be appreciated at its full value if we look upon the art of cornet playing as a lost art. “Thedessus,” he says, “was used in the vocal concerts and to make the treble with the organ, which is ravishing when one knows how to play it to perfection like the Sieur Guiclet;” and again further on, “the character of its tone resembles the brilliance of a sunbeam piercing the darkness, when it is heard among the voices in churches, cathedrals or chapels.”11Mersenne further observes that the serpent is the true bass of the cornet, that one without the other is like body without soul. A drawing in pen and ink of a curved cornet is given by Randle Holme in hisAcademy of Armoury(1688);12and at the end of the description of the instrument he adds, “It is a delicate pleasant wind musick, if well played and humoured.” Giovanni Maria Artusi13of Bologna, writing at the end of the 16th century, devotes much space to the cornet, explaining in detail the three kinds of tonguing used with the instrument. By tonguing is understood a method of articulation into the mouthpiece of flute, cornet à pistons or trumpet, of certain syllables which add brilliance to the tone. Artusi advocates (1) for the guttural effect,ler, ler, ler, der, ler, der, ler;ter, ler, ter;ler, ter, ler; (2) for the tongue effect,tere, tere, tere; (3) for the dental effect,teche, teche, teche, used by those who wish to strike terror into the hearts of the hearers—an effect, however, which offends the ear. A clue to the popularity of the instrument during the middle ages may perhaps be found in Artusi’s remark that this instrument is the most apt in imitating the human voice, but that it is very difficult and fatiguing to play; the musician, he adds elsewhere, should adopt an instrument to imitate the voice as much as possible, such as the cornetto and the trombone. He mentions two players in Venice, Il Cavaliero del Cornetto and M. Girolamo da Udine, who excelled in the art of playing the cornet.Being derived from the horn of an animal through which lateral holes had been pierced, the curved cornet was probably the earlier, and when the instrument came to be copied in metal and in wood the straight cornet was the result of an attempt to simplify the construction. The evolution probably took place in Asia Minor, where tubes with conical bore were the rule, and the instrument was thence introduced into Europe. A straightZinck, having a grotesque animal’s head at the bell-end, and six holes visible, is pictured in a miniature of the 11th century.14What appears to be precisely the same kind of instrument, although differing widely in reality, the chaunter being reed-blown, is to be found in illuminated MSS. as the chaunter of the bagpipe, as for example in a royal roll of Henry III. at the British Museum,15where it occurs twice played by a man on stilts. The grotesque was probably added to the chaunter in imitation of that on the straightZinck. Twostille Zinckenorcornetti mutiare among the musical instruments represented in the triumphal procession of the emperor Maximilian I.16(d. 1519), designed at his command by H. Burgmair under the superintendence of Albrecht Dürer.
At the beginning of the 17th century Praetorius4represents theZinckenas a complete family comprising: (1) the littleZinckwith the lowest note, (2) the ordinaryZinckwith the lowest note, (3) the greatZinck,cornonorcorno torto, a great cornet in the shape of anwith the lowest note. In France5the family was composed of the following instruments:
(1) Thedessusor treble cornet with the lowest note;
(2) thehaute-contreor alto cornet with the lowest note;
(3) thetailleor tenor cornet with the lowest noteand thebasseor bass orpédalle6cornet with the lowest note.
The cornets of the lowest pitch were sometimes furnished with an open key which, when closed, lengthened the tube, and extended the compass downwards by a note. Mersenne figures acornonwith a key.
During the middle ages these instruments were in such favour that an important part was given to them in all instrumental combinations. At Dresden,7between 1647 and 1651, the Kapelle of the electoral prince of Saxony included two cornets, the bass being supplied by the trombone. Monteverde introduced two cornets in the 3rd and 4th acts of hisOrfeo(1607). In France the charges for theChapelle-Musiqueof the kings of France for the year 1619 contain two entries of the sum of 450livres tournois, salary paid to one Marcel Cayty,joueur de cornet, a post held by him from 1604 until at least 1631, when another cornet player, Jean Daneau, is also mentioned.8
In Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries,Zinckenwere used with trombones in the churches to accompany the chorales. There are examples of this use of the instrument in the sacred cantatas of J. S. Bach, where the cornet is added to the upper voice parts to strengthen them. Johann Mattheson, conductor of the opera atHamburg, writing on the orchestra in 17139gives a description of theZinckas a member of the orchestra, but in 1739,10in his work on the perfect conductor, he deplores the decrease of its popularity in church music, from which it seems to be banished as useless. Gluck was the last composer of importance who scored for the cornet, as for instance inOrfeo, inParide ed Elena, inAlcesteand inArmide, &c. The great vogue of the curved cornet is not to be accounted for by its musical qualities, for it had a hard, hoarse, piercing sound, and it failed utterly in truth of intonation; these natural defects, moreover, could only be modified with great difficulty. Mersenne’s eulogium of thedessus, then more employed than the other cornets, can only be appreciated at its full value if we look upon the art of cornet playing as a lost art. “Thedessus,” he says, “was used in the vocal concerts and to make the treble with the organ, which is ravishing when one knows how to play it to perfection like the Sieur Guiclet;” and again further on, “the character of its tone resembles the brilliance of a sunbeam piercing the darkness, when it is heard among the voices in churches, cathedrals or chapels.”11Mersenne further observes that the serpent is the true bass of the cornet, that one without the other is like body without soul. A drawing in pen and ink of a curved cornet is given by Randle Holme in hisAcademy of Armoury(1688);12and at the end of the description of the instrument he adds, “It is a delicate pleasant wind musick, if well played and humoured.” Giovanni Maria Artusi13of Bologna, writing at the end of the 16th century, devotes much space to the cornet, explaining in detail the three kinds of tonguing used with the instrument. By tonguing is understood a method of articulation into the mouthpiece of flute, cornet à pistons or trumpet, of certain syllables which add brilliance to the tone. Artusi advocates (1) for the guttural effect,ler, ler, ler, der, ler, der, ler;ter, ler, ter;ler, ter, ler; (2) for the tongue effect,tere, tere, tere; (3) for the dental effect,teche, teche, teche, used by those who wish to strike terror into the hearts of the hearers—an effect, however, which offends the ear. A clue to the popularity of the instrument during the middle ages may perhaps be found in Artusi’s remark that this instrument is the most apt in imitating the human voice, but that it is very difficult and fatiguing to play; the musician, he adds elsewhere, should adopt an instrument to imitate the voice as much as possible, such as the cornetto and the trombone. He mentions two players in Venice, Il Cavaliero del Cornetto and M. Girolamo da Udine, who excelled in the art of playing the cornet.
Being derived from the horn of an animal through which lateral holes had been pierced, the curved cornet was probably the earlier, and when the instrument came to be copied in metal and in wood the straight cornet was the result of an attempt to simplify the construction. The evolution probably took place in Asia Minor, where tubes with conical bore were the rule, and the instrument was thence introduced into Europe. A straightZinck, having a grotesque animal’s head at the bell-end, and six holes visible, is pictured in a miniature of the 11th century.14What appears to be precisely the same kind of instrument, although differing widely in reality, the chaunter being reed-blown, is to be found in illuminated MSS. as the chaunter of the bagpipe, as for example in a royal roll of Henry III. at the British Museum,15where it occurs twice played by a man on stilts. The grotesque was probably added to the chaunter in imitation of that on the straightZinck. Twostille Zinckenorcornetti mutiare among the musical instruments represented in the triumphal procession of the emperor Maximilian I.16(d. 1519), designed at his command by H. Burgmair under the superintendence of Albrecht Dürer.
(b)Cornet à Pistons,Cornet,Cornopaean(Fr.cornet à pistons; Ger.Cornett; Ital.cornetto), are the names of a modern brass wind instrument of the same pitch as the trumpet. Being a transformation of the old post-horn, the cornet should have a conical bore of wide diameter in proportion to the length of tube, but in practice usually only a small portion of the tube is conical, i.e. from the mouthpiece to the slide of the first valve and from the slide of the third valve to the bell. The tube of the cornet is doubled round upon itself. The cup-shaped mouthpiece is larger than that of the trumpet; the shape of the cup in conjunction with the length of the tube and the proportions of the bore determines the timbre of the instrument. The outline of the bottom of the cup, where it communicates with the bore, is of the greatest importance.17If, as in the trumpet, it presents angles against which the column of air breaks, it produces a brilliant tone quality. In the cornet mouthpiece there are no angles at the bottom of the cup, which curves into the bore; hence the cornet’s loose, coarse quality of tone. The sound is produced by stretching the lips across the mouthpiece, and making them act as double reeds, set in vibration by the breath. There are no fixed notes on the cornet as in instruments with lateral holes, or with keys; the musical scale is obtained by means of the power the performer possesses—once he has learned how to use it—of producing the notes of the harmonic series by overblowing, i.e. by varying the tension of the lips and the pressure of breath. In the cornet this series is short, comprising only the harmonics from the 2nd to the 8th:
Harmonic series of the B♭ cornet—the 7th is slightly flat, a defect which the performer corrects, if he uses the note at all.
The intermediate notes completing the chromatic scale are obtained by means of three pistons which, on being depressed, open valves leading into supplementary wind-ways, which lengthen the original tube. The pitch of the instrument is thus lowered respectively one tone, half a tone, and one tone and a half. The action of the piston temporarily changes the key of the instrument and with it the notes of the harmonic series. Before a performer, therefore, can play a note he must know in which harmonic series it is best obtained and use the proper piston in conjunction with the requisite lip tension. By means of the pistons the compass of the cornet is thus extended from
(The minims indicate the practical compass but the extension shown by the crotchets is possible to all good players.)
The treble clef is used in notation, and in England the music for the cornet is usually written as sounded, but most French and German composers score for it as for a transposing instrument; for example, the music for the B♭ cornet is written in a key one tone higher than that of the composition.
Thetimbreof the cornet lies somewhere between that of the horn and the trumpet, having the blaring, penetrating quality of the latter without its brilliant noble sonorousness. The great favour with which the cornet meets is due to the facility with which it speaks, to the little fatigue it causes, and to the simplicity of its mechanism. We must, however, regret from the point of view of art that its success has been so great, and that it has ended in usurping in brass bands the place of the bugles, the tone colour of which is infinitely preferable as a foundation for an ensemble composed entirely of brass instruments. Even the symphonic orchestra has not been secure from its intrusion, and the growing tendency in some orchestras, notably in France, to allow the cornet to supersede the trumpet, to the great detriment of tone colour, is to be deplored. The cornet used in a rich orchestral harmony is of value for completing the chords of trumpets, or to undertake diatonic and chromatic passages which on account of their rapidity cannot easily be fingered by trombones or horns. The technical possibilities of the instrument are very great, almost unrivalled in the brass wind:—notes sustained, crescendo or diminuendo; diatonic and chromatic scale and arpeggio passages; leaps, shakes, and in fact all kinds of musical figures in any key, can be played with great facility on the three-valved cornet. Double tonguing is also practicable, the articulation with the tongue of the syllablesti-kefor double, and ofti-ke-tifor triple time producing a striking staccato effect.
The cornet was evolved in Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century, from the post-horn, by the application of thenewly invented pistons of Stoelzel and Bluemel patented in 1815. It was introduced into Great Britain and France about 1830. There were at first only two pistons—for a whole tone and for a half tone—from which there naturally resulted gaps in the chromatic scale of the instrument. The use of a combination of pistons (seeBombardonandValves) fails to give acoustically correct intervals, because the length of tubing thus thrown open is not of the theoretical length required to produce the interval. A tube about 4 ft. long, such as that of the B♭ cornet, needs an additional length of about 3 in. to lower the pitch a semitone; but, if this cornet has already been lowered one tone to the key of A♭, the length of tube has increased some 6 in., and the 3-in. semitone piston no longer adds sufficient tubing to produce a semitone of correct intonation. To the performer falls the task of concealing the shortcomings of his instrument, and he therefore corrects the intonation by varying the lip tension. At first the cornet was supplied with a great many crooks for A, A♭, G, F, E, E♭ and D, but from the explanationnowgiven, it will be readily understood that they were found unpractical for valve instruments, and all but the first two mentioned have been abandoned. The history of the cornet is a record of the endeavours of successive musical instrument makers to overcome this inherent defect in construction. The most ingenious and successful of these improvements are the following:—(1) Thesix-valve-independent system18of Adolphe Sax, designed about 1850, by which a separate valve was used for each position, thus obviating the necessity of using combinations of pistons. This theoretically perfect system unfortunately introduced great difficulties in practice, the valves being madeascendinginstead ofdescending, and each piston cutting off a definite length of wind-way from the open tube, instead of adding to it. The system was eventually abandoned. (2) TheBesson Registregiving eight independent positions, afterwards modified as the (3)Besson compensating system transpositeur, patented in England in 1859, which was considered so successful that the idea was extensively used by other makers. (4) TheBoosey automatic compensating piston, invented by D. J. Blaikley, and patented in 1878, a very ingenious device whereby when two or more pistons are used simultaneously the length of the air column is automatically adjusted to the theoretical length required to ensure correct intonation. (5) Victor Mahillon’s automatic regulating pistons (pistons régulateur automatique) produced about 1886, the result of independent efforts in the same direction as Blaikley, and equally ingenious and effectual.19Finally we have (6) more recently theBesson enharmonic valve system(fig. 3) with three pistons and six independent tuning slides which give the seven positions independently, thus realizing in a simple effectual manner all that Sax strove to accomplish with his six pistons. The enharmonic valves give all notes theoretically true; there are in addition separate means for adjusting each of the first six lengths, for although these lengths are theoretically correct there are always certain modifying conditions connected with brass instruments which render it essential to provide means for adjustment. All notes being true on this Besson cornet, they can be fingered to the greatest advantage for smoothness and rapidity. (7) Rudall, Carte & Co.’s cornet (fig. 4), with strictly conical bore (Klussmann’s patent) throughout the open tube and additional lengths from the mouthpiece to the bell, gives a perfect intonation and is at the same time easy to blow. There are no crooks to this cornet when constructed in B♭, but it may be instantaneously transposed into the key of A major by means of an undetachable slide guided by a piston rod.