Please complete the form to email this item.

Trumpet marine

Trumpet marine

  • Place of origin:

    France (made)

  • Date:

    ca. 1750 (made)

  • Artist/Maker:

    Unknown (production)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Sawed, planed and joined pine, with metal hitch pins

  • Museum number:

    174-1882

  • Gallery location:

    In Storage

  • Download image

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.

Place of Origin

France (made)

Date

ca. 1750 (made)

Artist/maker

Unknown (production)

Materials and Techniques

Sawed, planed and joined pine, with metal hitch pins

Dimensions

Length: 191 cm, Width: 37 cm maximum

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

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.

Labels and date

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]

Materials

Metal; Pine

Techniques

Joining; Planing; Sawing

Categories

Musical instruments

Collection code

FWK

Download image
Qr_O58940
Ajax-loader