Post trumpet

(Fr. trompette de poste; Ger. Posttrompete; It. tromba di posta). A trumpet-shaped (or rather, bugle-shaped) Post horn. It was officially adopted for use on mail coaches in northern Germany in 1828 in preference to the traditional circular model, although the latter was again in favour from 1866. The post trumpet was pitched in E, as is the Prussian cavalry trumpet, but had a cornet-type mouthpiece. The tubing was usually coiled four times, making the instrument more compact than a cavalry trumpet; in the region between Lübeck and Hamburg it was slightly more elongated, being coiled three times, and had a cup-shaped (trumpet-type) mouthpiece. The illustration shows a specimen from Prussia, dating from 1840, in this instance an Ehrentrompete (‘trumpet of honour’ or ‘presentation trumpet’) awarded to distinguished performers. In Prussia a new set of call signals was issued for the post trumpet when it was introduced in 1828, and these were also adopted in Saxony and elsewhere (Rycroft).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Trompeten-Schule für die königlich sächsischen Postillone (Leipzig, 1828)

A. Hiller: ‘The Trumpet in North German Postal Services of the 19th Century’, Brass Bulletin, xlvii (1984), 12–18

A. Hiller: Das Grosse Buch vom Posthorn (Wilhelmshaven, 1985), 21–3, 269–70, 280

D. Rycroft: ‘A Tutor for the Post Trumpet’, GSJ, xlv (1992), 99–106

DAVID K. RYCROFT