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FORTY YEARS' PEACE. |
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use." Even though the "valve" came from Germany, it laid dormant with them for some time. From 1818, it was taken up here and there in Prussia by regiments of cavalry and chasseurs, but little impression was created by the novelty, until a civilian musician, named Wilhelm Wieprecht (1802-72)^ applied it about 1828 to a family of brass instruments, which included an E flat soprano cornet (three valves), an E flat trumpet (two valves), a B flat tenor horn (three valve's) and a B flat euphonium (three valves). Seven years later he designed the bombardon also with valves.
The introduction of the valve into England came about in a novel way. Of course it goes without saying that military bands had the honour of this. They were always the pioneers. About the year 1830, Earl Cathcart, the colonel of the Second Life Guards, went to St. Petersburg as Minister Plenipotentiary, and there he was very much struck with the playing of the band of the Imperial Guards. On inquiring of their organisation, he found that they played upon a rare contrivance known as a chromatic trumpet. The Earl was well in favour at court, and the Emperor of Russia was so gratified by the earl's high commendation of the performances of his Imperial Guard band, that he offered to present a set of these chromatic trumpets to the Earl's regiment in England, on condition that, whenever they played in public, the patent chromatic action should be covered, so as to keep the idea a secret. This was done. The "United Service Journal" of 1831, speaking of the "famous Russian chromatic trumpet band" of the |
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