Holztrompete

A Holztrompete (Wooden Trumpet), generally refers to natural trumpets whose conical or cylindrical blowpipe is made of wood and can be from half a meter to five meters long. The best-known wooden trumpet is the Swiss alphorn. Their design and traditional function was as a signaling and warning instrument used by shepherds and sometimes for ritual occasions.

In classical music, one was designed by Richard Wagner for representing the natural pipe of the peasant in Tristan und Isolde. This instrument is not unlike the cor anglais in rough outline, being a conical tube of approximately the same length, terminating in a small globular bell, but having neither holes nor keys; it is blown through a cupshaped mouthpiece made of horn. The Holztrompete is in the key of C; the scale is produced by overblowing, whereby the upper partials from the 2nd to the 6th are produced. A single piston placed at a third of the distance from the mouthpiece to the bell gives the notes D and F.