A comprehensive dictionary of organ stops - Allen Organ Studio of ...

DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS. 23
Clarinets of 4 ft. pitch occurred at St. Alessando, Milan ; Hoforgel,
Dresden, (Silbermann). The name Clarinet is derived from the Italian
Clarino, a small Trumpet. The version, Clarionet, is supposed to spring
from the English, Clarion. Even if not absolutely inaccurate, it is
certainly not to be commended. Cremona is a corruption of Krumm-Horn,
or Cromorne, the adoption of which name has in time past led to the idea
that the stop was intended to imitate the Cremona Violin.
The following extract from a Voluntary Book (dating from
the end of the XVIII Century) by one Jonas Blewitt, is both
amusing and instructive, showing the state of contemporaneous
reed-voicing, as well as illustrating our point :— "It is supposed
to assimilate with the Fiddle so named from a city renowned
for making those instruments ; yet, I think it by no means a
good imitation, it being nearest in. tone to the Violoncello,
therefore, the middle or tenor part of the organ should be used
in adapting music to this stop." Corno di Bassetto represents
the old Basset Horn, a tenor Clarinet. Krummhorn (Ger. =
crooked horn), had originally reference to a variety of Shawm
or Horn, now obsolete, provided with six holes, and, at the
lower end, semicircular in form. Cor Morne is variously
represented as derived from (Fr.) Cor = Horn, Morne = dull
or gloomy, or Morne = Mountain. The name Cromorne is
an intermediary between Cormorne and Krummhorn.
In modern times, in this country, if any distinction at all be
drawn, the Corno di Bassetto is generally a fuller and richer toned
stop than the thin and piquant Clarinet. In old organs when
the Clarinet extended only to tenor C, the name Krummhorn
was applied to a Clarinet carried down to the F below, with the
tube bent towards the middle, similar in appearance to that of
a Fan Trumpet. This is now obsolete and the name may refer
to any variety of Clarinet. In England the Clarinet is ex-
clusively made as a stop with pipes of cylindrical shape ; buc
in Germany the Krummhorn or Klarinette, and in France the
Cormorne or Corno di Bassetto, is often either a cylindrical
pipe surmounted by a bell (Comet-a-Pavillon), and sometimes
pierced as the Keraulophon, or one of inverted conical shape.
In such cases it is also occasionally voiced as a chorus stop,
even as a soft Trumpet standing side by side with a loud
Trumpet on the Great organ (St. Denis, St. Vincent de Paul,
Paris). In Germany and Switzerland the Clarinet is almost
always a free reed of moderately large scale, and, compared to
our style, frequently of very poor, thin and colourless tone.
The author, however, heard an excellent free reed specimen Clarinet.