Cromorne

Musical instrument

Cromorne is a French woodwind reed instrument of uncertain identity^{[clarification needed]}, used in the early Baroque period in French court music. The name is sometimes confused with the similar-sounding name crumhorn, a musical woodwind instrument probably of different design, called "tournebout" by French theorists in the 17th century.^[1]^[2]

Crumhorn

Basse de Cromorne from Organ Suite in D major

By Jean-François Dandrieu

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By contrast, the crumhorn (also known by names including crum horn, crumm horn, Krummhorn, Krummpfeife, Kumbhorn, cornamuto torto, and piva torto) is a capped double-reed instrument usually shaped like a letter "J" and possessing a rather small melodic range spanning a ninth (i.e. just over an octave) unless extended downward by keys or by the technique of underblowing, which increases the range by a perfect fifth.^[3] However, this instrument was apparently little used in England—despite listings in the inventories of Henry VIII and the earls of Arundel at Nonsuch House, and mention in a poem by Sir William Leighton, they are conspicuously absent from inventories and other documents of English town waits^[3]—or France and was called a "tournebout" by French theorists including Mersenne (1636), Pierre Trichet (ca 1640), and even as late as Diderot (1767).^[1]^[3]^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Boydell 2001a.
^ ^a ^b Boydell 2001c.
^ ^a ^b ^c Boydell 2001b.

Sources

Boydell, Barra R. 2001a. "Cromorne (i)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Boydell, Barra R. 2001b. "Crumhorn". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Boydell, Barra R. 2001c. "Tournebout". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.