Cimbasso

What it means

Cimbasso is the name for the lowest brass instrument of 19th-century Italian opera orchestras. Historically the term did not denote one fixed type of instrument but shifted meaning by time and place: in Giuseppe Verdi's scores, “cimbasso” usually means a bass trombone or a related valved brass instrument that took the lowest bass part of the brass section.

Musical use

Verdi used the cimbasso to give the brass section a unified, homogeneous color from trumpet down to bass, unlike the often more distinct color of the tuba. Because historical cimbassi are rare and their exact construction is inconsistently documented in sources, the part in modern performances is often played on a specially revived, valved instrument built upright in trumpet form, which has been manufactured again since the late 20th century.

The cimbasso should be distinguished from the bass tuba, which fills the equivalent role in the rest of the European orchestra, and from the contrabass trombone, with which it was historically sometimes equated.

Performance practice

When you hear Verdi's Italian operas in historically informed instrumentation, notice the unified, trumpet-like color of the lowest brass part — it sounds different from the rounder, often softer tuba that plays this part in many modern performances.