Blås på Svenska

Abstract

The terminology of brass instruments is complicated and often confusing. The Swedish terminology of Swedish brass instruments has developed through borrowed terms from other languages. From 19th-century source materials and H. Heyde’s Das Ventilblasinstrument (1983) the article argues that the term “Swedish cornet” (kornett) must be seen as a result from the introduction of the Kornett, an instrument used longer in Sweden than in north Germany. The kornett was not created from some “Swedish ideal of sound,” nor is it a variant of the cornet à piston (earlier called piston in Swedish).