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Commentary by Ralph Dudgeon
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Stölzel valve cornopean crooked to A-flat. Bits and crooks (from left to right) for A, B-flat, G, and F. Anonymous maker marked “A PARIS / 79” form the Dudgeon Collection. Photo by Dawn Van Hall, SUNY Cortland
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George Macfarlane worked in London before 1845 to some point after 1860. He was a keyed bugle player turned cornetist and inventor. A ten-keyed bugle marked “Macfarlane's Improved” was manufactured and marketed by J. A. Köhler. The Bate Collection in Oxford, England has a unique manuscript collection of Macfarlane's arrangements for keyed bugle and piano. The collection is interesting for Macfarlane's scoring for keyed bugle in B-natural in addition to the instrument's more common crooking to B-flat and C. In 1845, he is credited with the invention of the Macfarlane clapper-key, British patent #577 and French patent #2627, a devise that produced trills on certain notes on the three-valve cornopean. The popularity of the trill key is often attributed to the crude machining of the early Stölzel valves that made smooth trills less graceful than on the keyed bugles that preceded them. Cornets with the clapper-key can be found in several instrument collections including the Horniman Museum, London and Instrumentenmuseum Schloss Kremsegg, Kremsmünster, Upper Austria. Also in 1845, Macfarlane produced a “New Cornopean” (British patent #594) and in 1860 he patented an eleven-keyed ophicleide, British patent #2965 with W. E. Newton and R. Carte. We know that he participated in the1851 London Exhibition with a submission of and improved cornet and one of these cornets survives in the Bernoulli collection now in Basel, Switzerland.
Macfarlane's The Cornopean Instructor . . . went through many editions. The example reproduced here is the 23rd “newly revised” edition. We can make an educated guess about the date of the publication based on some of the information provided in the advertisement for Köhler and Son musical instruments on the publication's back cover. Köhler and Son occupied the address of 35 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden from 1863-1881. The ad lists medals won in 1851 and 1862. This suggests that the volume was published after 1863, but perhaps before 1870. Köhler and Son list only valve cornets and trumpets with the exception of Harper's slide trumpet. The only reference to earlier keyed bugles is in item 19 where we are told that the sound of the e-flat/d-flat flugelhorn has “the same effect as the old Eb Kent Bugle.” Although the Kent Bugle was considered “old” at this point, an eleven-key ophicleide is offered (item 43), but this only provides additional documentation that the ophicleide outlived its soprano brother, the keyed bugle, into the turn of the century.
The term “cornopean” is applied loosely to the early cornet in England. These instruments were a mix of Stölzel and Périnet valve systems and featured a set of detachable crooks that included straight pipes for B-flat and A and coiled crooks that descend chromatically to alto F. After the decade of this Macfarlane method, fixed mouthpipes became the norm and transpositions were negotiated from B-flat or quick change valves to A. Many of the early cornopean virtuosos were horn players. Outstanding players included, Forestier, Dufresne, and Schlotmann who played crooked Stölzel valve instruments that had developed from Halary's experiments of attaching valves to posthorns. Not surprisingly, the horn players advocated a timbre that sounded more like a high horn. Later players like Arban came from trumpet backgrounds and advocated a timbre that suggested a low trumpet. Changes in mouthpieces and instrument bore gradually made the Arban school more popular. However, crooked Stölzel valve cornets continued to be listed in instrument maker's catalogs to the early twentieth century.
In his method, Macfarlane explains that cornopeans sound best when they are crooked down to A, A-flat, and G. On page ten, he diagrams the slide adjustments that correspond to these crookings. He outlines the procedures for making transpositions and suggests common keys that the material should be transposed to. Besides the usual popular and operatic airs, we find a few of Macfarlane's own themes and variations and duets that are as serviceable today as they were in Macfarlane's era.
For more reading:
Ralph Dudgeon, The Keyed Bugle, Second Edition (Landham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2004)
“MacFarlane” and “Köhler” entries in William Waterhouse, The New Langwill Index: A Dictionary of Musical Wind-Instrument makers and Inventors (London: Tony Bingham, 1993)
John Webb, Designs for Brass in the Public Record Office in: Galpin Society Journal, XXXVIII, 48
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