CORNET, a word having two distinct significations and two etymological histories, both, however, ultimately referable to the same Latin origin:— I. (Fr. cornette, dim. of corne, from Lat. cornu, a horn), a small standard, formerly carried by a troop of cavalry, and similar to the pennon in form, narrowing gradually to a point. The term was then applied to the body of cavalry which carried a cornet, and later to the junior officer who, like the "ensign" of foot, carried the colour.
2. (Fr. cornet, Ital. cornetto, Med. Lat. cornetum, a bugle, from Lat. cornu, a horn), in music, the name of two varieties of wind instruments (see below), and also of certain stops of the organ.
(a) CORNET or CORNETT is the name given to a family of not brass, but wood wind instruments, now obsolete, and differing entirely from the modern cornet a pistons. In Germany in the i 7th and 18th centuries, they were used with trombones in the churches to accompany the chorales, and there are examples of this use of the instrument in the sacred cantatas of J. S. Bach. Gluck was the last composer of importance who scored for the cornet.
(b) CORNET A PISTONS, CORNET and CORNOPAEAN are the names of a modern brass wind instrument, a transformation of the old post-horn, of the same pitch as the trumpet. There are no fixed notes on the cornet, as in instruments with lateral holes, or with keys; the musical scale is obtained by means of the power the performer possesses of pro ducing the notes of the harmonic series by over-blowing, i.e., by varying the tension of the lips and the pressure of breath, the inter mediate notes being obtained by means of three pistons. The tim bre of the cornet lies somewhere between that of the horn and the trumpet, having the blaring, penetrating quality of the latter, without its brilliant, noble son orousness.