(Fr.: ‘turned end’).
(1) A French name for the Crumhorn used by Mersenne (1636–7) and subsequent writers including Diderot (1765), whose engraving of a tournebout (fig.1) is copied from Mersenne. The word is found only in theoretical sources.
(2) The name given to a number of instruments in modern collections (Brussels Conservatory; Musikhistorisk Museum, Copenhagen; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musikmuseet, Stockholm), superficially similar to the crumhorn (fig.2). These lack any wind cap, have a very wide bore and are covered in black leather. Sachs (1920) and Kinsky (1925) considered them to be examples of the French 17th-century Cromorne (i). Weber (1977) showed that they can be made to play only when treated as bladder pipes, using a single reed; it is most unlikely that such instruments would have been played at the French court. Their close similarity to the pifia ricoperta in pelle illustrated in Franciolini’s catalogues (see Ripin, 1974) suggests that they are late 19th-century creations based on Diderot’s engraving of a crumhorn (tournebout).
MersenneHU
D. Diderot, ed.: Encyclopédie, xvi (Neufchâtel, 1765)
D. Diderot, ed.: Recueil de planches, v (Paris, 1767)
C. Sachs: Handbuch der Musikinstrumentenkunde (Leipzig, 1920, 2/1930/R)
G. Kinsky: ‘Doppelrohrblatt-Instrumente mit Windkapsel’, AMw, vii (1925), 274–96
E. Ripin: The Instrument Catalogs of Leopoldo Franciolini (Hackensack, NJ, 1974)
R. Weber: ‘Tournebout – Pifia – Bladderpipe (Platerspiel)’, GSJ, xxx (1977), 64–9
C. Karp: ‘Tournebout – Pifia – Bladderpipe’, GSJ, xxxi (1978), 147–9
B.R. Boydell: The Crumhorn and Other Renaissance Windcap Instruments (Buren, 1982)
BARRA R. BOYDELL