Trumpet Marine
ca. 1750 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
It is not known why this somewhat eccentric instrument is called the Tromba Marina or Trumpet Marine, although it is meant to sound like a trumpet. Unlike the 'cello or double bass, the Trumpet Marine has no fingerboard for the left hand to play on. Instead, the main string is played with a bow near the top of the instrument, and tapped below with the left hand at various positions so as to create the harmonics that make the tune. At the same time wire strings, partly hidden inside the body of the instrument, vibrate as the instrument is played. The Trumpet Marine was mainly used to accompany the singing of plainsong from about 1400, and most surviving examples were acquired by museums from Monasteries in Germany and Switzerland after about 1880.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Sawed, planed and joined pine, with metal hitch pins |
| Brief description | French (?), 1700-50 |
| Physical description | Marine Trumpet (Tromba Marina) A pine bridge , one thick catgut string outside and forty one sympathetic wire strings inside. Intended to be played with a bow and with a finger lightly touching the strings. It produced a sound like that of a trumpet. |
| Dimensions |
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| Gallery label | TRUMPET MARINE
French (?); about 1700
Pine sound board and body. One large tuning peg and melody string and forty-one sympathetic strings, accessible through a sliding trap at the top of the soundboard.
Non-Keyboard Catalogue No.: 5/1
It is not known how the trumpet marine or tromba marina got its name. The earliest examples are depicted in illuminated manuscripts of the 1450s. The instrument was mainly used for religious purposes, accompanying plainsong in monasteries in Switzerland and Germany into the 1880s, although Hector Berlioz in 1859 described it as "a triton's conch, capable of frightening asses". The melody string was played with a bow, while the left hand produced harmonics.
174-1882(pre September 2000) |
| Object history | This formed part of the collection of Carl Engel (1919 - 1882), a leading musicologist who published the Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1874). Engel's collection was bought by the museum in 1882, nos. 150 to 350, for £555. 6s. 0d. RP 2315/1882 Bought for £5 |
| Summary | It is not known why this somewhat eccentric instrument is called the Tromba Marina or Trumpet Marine, although it is meant to sound like a trumpet. Unlike the 'cello or double bass, the Trumpet Marine has no fingerboard for the left hand to play on. Instead, the main string is played with a bow near the top of the instrument, and tapped below with the left hand at various positions so as to create the harmonics that make the tune. At the same time wire strings, partly hidden inside the body of the instrument, vibrate as the instrument is played. The Trumpet Marine was mainly used to accompany the singing of plainsong from about 1400, and most surviving examples were acquired by museums from Monasteries in Germany and Switzerland after about 1880. |
| Bibliographic reference | London, Victoria & Albert Museum: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Part II, Anthony Baines: Non-keyboard instruments (London, 1998), pp. 23 - 24. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 174-1882 |
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| Record created | May 16, 2001 |
| Record URL |
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