Baritone (ii) [Baritone horn]

(Ger. Tenorhorn; It. flicorno tenore, tenore).

A valved brass instrument in B, pitched as the trombone, in Britain having a narrower bore than the similarly pitched Euphonium. Two are used in British brass bands to fill the harmony rather than as solo instruments. The usual compass sounds from E to b', and its music is written in the treble clef a 9th higher. The instrument is the final version of Sax's ‘saxhorn baryton’, known in France as ‘baryton en si’, the euphonium being ‘basse en si’. In American band music, no consistent musical distinction is made between two B instruments of contrasted bore and timbre, and ‘baritone’ is the normal term for the valved instrument of this pitch, save insofar as makers offer a variety of bore widths to the customer's choice, and sometimes designate the models of largest bore ‘euphonium’. In Germany two B band instruments are distinguished in bore and function as in France and Britain, but have been evolved independently; ‘Bariton’ describes the large-bore form and ‘Tenorhorn’ the narrower.

See also Saxhorn; Althorn; Tenor horn.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Waterhouse-LangwillI

A. Baines: Brass Instruments: their History and Development (London, 1976/R)

C. Bevan: The Tuba Family (London, 1978)

H. Heyde: Trompeten, Posaunen, Tuben (Leipzig, 1980) [museum catalogue]

ANTHONY C. BAINES/TREVOR HERBERT