From the 14th century to the end of the 18th, a signal or flourish on trumpet(s) or drum(s). As a verb, ‘tuck’ occurs in the 14th and 15th centuries, more often in connection with drums (‘nakeryn noyse, notes of pipes, Tymbres & tabornes, tulket among’; Morris, l.1414). The sounds of trumpet and drum were often distinguished, especially in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, by the use of different verbs, as in ‘The trumpet sounds, The dandring drums alloud did touk’ (Battle of Harlaw, after 1500) or in ‘toucking of kettle Drummes, sounding of Trumpets, and other ostentations of ioy’ (Lithgow). As a noun, ‘tuck’ was used in John Lydgate’s translation of The Destruction of Troy (1410–20) to mean a trumpet signal for assembly: ‘With the tuk of a trump, all his tore knightes He assemblit’. Otherwise its musical use was apparently confined exclusively to drums, and the ‘tuck of drum’ survived in the works of Scottish writers until well into the 19th century, as in Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian (1818, ‘An open convocating of the king’s lieges … by touk of drum’).
‘Tucket’ is found in the late 16th century and the 17th, mostly in the stage directions of plays, where it chiefly indicates a piece of trumpet music to accompany an entrance: ‘[Tucket within.] Hark, the Duke’s trumpets! I know not why he comes’ (Shakespeare: King Lear, Act 2 scene i; 1608). The stage direction ‘flourish’, which is often applied to both entrances and exits, may be an alternative term. The sounding of a tucket before a military signal is also found in Shakespeare: ‘Then let the trumpets sound the tucket sonance and the note to mount’ (Henry V, Act 4 scene ii; 1599). The term was also used as an alternative name for one of the military trumpet signals: Markham (1639) gave ‘Tucquet, march’ as the fourth of six explicitly military calls meaning ‘Marching after the Leader’.
The tucket was known by various name forms elsewhere in Europe: Toccete in Germany (C. Hentzschel: Oratorischer Hall und Schall … der Trommeten, 1620), tocceda in Denmark (Thomsen, c1596), and toccata/toccada in Italy (Bendinelli: Tutta l’arte della trombetta, 1614), among others. These terms have been said to derive from the Italian Toccata, first met with in the late 15th century. However, this cannot be, since ‘tuck’ and its variants already existed in Old French and Middle English.
Surviving toccatas employ the low triadic register and would have been performed monophonically. (The toccata … auanti il leuar de la tela to Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) derives its name from the inclusion of the ‘customary’ Mantuan court monophonic trumpet toccata in the alto e basso part of the five-part trumpet ensemble setting.) A particular recurring figure is the ‘dran’, a sustained and accented fourth partial approached without separate articulation from a hardly-touched third partial.
There are two main types of toccata. ‘Free-standing’ ones ‘employed on various [ceremonial] occasions’ (Bendinelli) comprise four main sections and are characterized by thematic falling arpeggio figures (ex.1). 18 examples were given by Thomsen, and 27 by Bendinelli. The second type was employed in the 16th century and early 17th in conjunction with military signals. Bendinelli notes that these toccatas could be shortened or omitted, depending on the circumstances. He also, exceptionally, supplies a different toccata for nearly every trumpet signal. Thomsen, Mersenne (Harmonie universelle, 1636–7) and Fantini (Modo per imparare a sonare di tromba, 1638) each include a single toccata for use with all of their military signals, naming it the ‘Ingangk’, ‘l’Entree’ and ‘sparata’, respectively. The military toccatas are shorter than their free-standing counterparts and comprise one to three sections. Bendinelli includes syllabic underlay for his military toccatas to assist correct articulation and as aides memoires. The ‘Cavalry March’ signal was occasionally substituted for the toccata (and also alternatively named ‘tucquet’) before the trumpet signal ‘To the Standard’ (Bendinelli).
The free-standing and military toccatas were replaced during the 17th century by a derivative monophonic form called the Chiamata (later termed ‘Ruf’ in Germany), which may have evolved in its turn into the 18th-century German ‘Tusch’, a loosely organized trumpet ensemble fanfare on a standing chord. From the late 17th century to the 19th ‘touquet’ (and related forms) also meant the lowest-sounding trumpet part in military fanfares (J.M. Gottmann: Aufzüge; J.D. Buhl: Méthode de trompette; F.G.A. Dauverné: Méthode pour la trompette).
See also Military calls; Signal (i); Touch (iii).
W. Lithgow: The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painfull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Travayles (London, 1632), chap.7
G. Markham: The Soldiers Exercise (London, 1639)/R
R. Morris, ed.: Early English Alliterative Poems (London, 2/1869), ll.1413–4
P. Downey: The Trumpet and its Role in Music of the Renaissance and Early Baroque (diss., Queen’s U. of Belfast, 1983)
EDWARD H. TARR, PETER DOWNEY