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“Posaun vnd Zinckhen han wir gestelt zu dem Gesang” (we have added trombones and cornetts to the singing)

Markus Grassl

Since the later fifteenth century, courtly and urban alta ensembles expanded to include instruments such as crumhorns, recorders and cornetts.[19] This trend also influenced the court music of Maximilian I, as evidenced by the Triumphzug, which depicted crumhorns and shawms on the music wagons with the motto “Posaun vnd Zinckhen han wir gestelt zu dem Gesang” (we have added trombones and cornetts to the singing) (» Fig. Triumphzug wind instruments).[20] One of the most significant and lasting developments in ensemble formation around 1500 was the creation of a new ensemble type: the combination of cornetts and trombones. (» Hörbsp./ audio ♫Optime pastor.) This combination was not only new in itself but also took on a new function by joining the vocal ensemble, particularly in performing sacred vocal polyphony within the liturgy.

The early history of the cornett and the cornett-trombone ensemble cannot be fully reconstructed. However, it is evident that almost all of the earliest sources documenting the combination of singers with cornett and trombone or their use in the liturgy come from the Habsburg courts or their surroundings.[21] These include not only the depiction of the “Musica Canterey” (chapel) in the Triumphzug, Antoine Lalaing’s travel description[22], the reports of mass services during imperial diets, and municipal payment records, but also a remark about the Nuremberg trombonist Johannes Neuschl, who repeatedly worked for Maximilian I between 1502 and 1517 and was praised for “humano concentui tube sonoritatem permiscet”[23] (adding the sound of the tuba [that is, any brass instrument] to the harmony of human voices). It is therefore more than likely that the musicians at the Habsburg courts, including Schubinger, played a leading role in the development of this new practice.

As the sources clearly show, cornettists and trombonists played simultaneously with the singers, accompanying them colla parte or occasionally replacing individual vocalists, so that the respective voice was purely instrumental. (» Hörbsp./ audio ♫ Mater digna Dei.) Additionally, various reports—originating not only from the Habsburg context—suggest that wind ensembles around 1500 also took on other tasks in the liturgy. They could be used for the alternatim performance of liturgical chants, playing instrumental pieces based on the respective chant melody in alternation with the singers, or providing preludes and postludes that introduced or concluded individual chants or longer sections of the liturgical sequence.[24]

Although a group of four to five trombonists can be repeatedly documented at Maximilian’s court since around 1500,[25] it is not assumed that a “full-voiced” ensemble of cornetts and trombones was always formed. Rather, “reduced” ensembles of just one or two wind players are also to be expected, as shown by well-known depictions such as the portrayal of the ensemble with only Schubinger and Steudl in the Triumphzug or the illustration in the music chapter of the Weißkunig (» Abb. Weißkunig Blatt 33 / Fig. Weißkunig fol. 33, in: » I. Instrumentalists at the Court of Maximilian I), which shows a group of singers with a cornett player in the upper left corner.

Abb. Weißkunig Blatt 33 / Fig. Weißkunig fol. 33

Abb. Weißkunig Blatt 33

„Wie der jung weiß kunig die musica und saytenspil lernet erkennen“ (Weißkunig, Blatt 33). Holzschnitt von Hans Burgkmair, 1514–16. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, A-Wn Cod. 3032. /

How the young White King learned to master musica and string playing (Weißkunig, fol. 33). Woodcut by Hans Burgkmair, 1514-16. Austrian National Library,  A-Wn Cod. 3032.

The constellation depicted in the Triumphzug is probably not atypical. Several testimonies suggest that wind duos were more widespread in various liturgical and especially secular contexts than the standard four-member alta ensembles around 1500 might suggest. This applies to the musical life in cities, some of which only had two city pipers,[26] as well as to courtly music practice. In addition to payments to wind pairs (occasionally including Schubinger[27]), pictorial sources especially prove the existence of such duos. These include depictions of dance scenes in the tournament book Freydal, commissioned by Maximilian I. While the combination of flute (or fife) and drum dominates, the dancers are also accompanied once each by shawm (or cornett?) and trombone, by flute and trombone, and by two flutes.[28]

Abb. Tanzszene aus Freydal / Fig. Dancing scene from Freydal

Abb. Tanzszene aus Freydal

Freydal. Turnierbuch Kaiser Maximilians I., 1512/1515, Tafel 183 (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien). Reproduktion: Leitner 1881/82, 183. / 

Freydal. Tournament book of Emperor Maximilian I, 1512/1515, plate 183 (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien). Reproduction: Leitner 1881/82, 183.

[19] Polk 1992a, 73–75; Polk 1987, 180; specifically for Nuremberg cf. Green 2005, 13.

[20] Depiction of the choir wagon in the Triumphzug (» Abb. Triumphzug Kantorei.).

[21] See the compilation of evidence in Grassl 2019, 230–246.

[22] See, in addition to the evidence mentioned in » G. Augustin Schubinger (English), note 57, 58, 61, also the minutes of the Constance Cathedral Chapter 1510: “ex parte Augustini lutiniste domini Cesaris. Als derselb Augustini etlich tag im chor zur orgel vnd den sengern uff dem zingken geblausen hat, ist capitulariter conclusum, im zu erunge 2 fl. zeschencken” (see Krebs 1956, 24, no. 4091).

[23] Cochlaeus 1512, 90–91.

[24] Grassl 2017, 347–349 and 357–358; Grassl 2019, 217–221 and 227–228.

[25] Nedden 1932/1933, 28; Wessely 1956, 85, 88, 101–103, and 108–111; Polk 1992b, 86. Cf. in particular the “collective” or “group entries” in: D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 97 (1503), fol. 28r: “Item x guldin Ko mayt. Busanern dero fünffe”; Vol. 98 (1504), fol. 26r: “It. viij gulden Jörigen Holland, Jorigen Eyselin, Hannsen Stevdlin vnd Vlrich Vellen Kö. mayt. Busaunern”.

[26] Polk 1992a, 109; Green 2011, 20.

[27] See the entries in the Nördlingen account books 1506 and 1507 (» Abb. Zahlung der Stadt Nördlingen an Schubinger, 8. Juni 1506), as well as » G. Augustin Schubinger (English), note 67.

[28] Henning 1987, 87 (plate 183), 90 (plate 211), 94 (plate 255).