Keyed trumpet

What it means

The keyed trumpet is a historical form of the trumpet fitted with side keys to allow the playing of additional, chromatic notes outside the harmonic series. It was meant to overcome the earlier limitation of the natural trumpet to the notes of the harmonic series.

Musical use

The keyed trumpet was developed in 1801 by the Austrian trumpeter Anton Weidinger, who constructed it in collaboration with Viennese instrument makers. For this new instrument Joseph Haydn in 1796 and Johann Nepomuk Hummel in 1803 wrote their well-known trumpet concertos, which for the first time demanded a continuously melodic, also chromatic manner of playing in the low and middle range. Because of tonal drawbacks, such as an uneven timbre between open and keyed notes, the keyed trumpet did not become permanently established, however.

The keyed trumpet should be distinguished from the natural trumpet, which can play only the pure harmonic series, and from the later valve trumpet, which from the 1820s made all chromatic notes possible more evenly and reliably with valves instead of keys, and ultimately displaced the keyed trumpet.

Performance practice

When listening to historical performances of Haydn's or Hummel's trumpet concerto on the keyed trumpet, note the characteristic difference in sound between open and keyed notes, barely audible on modern valve trumpets. This difference belongs to the historical sound picture and is not a playing error.