Clarín

(Sp.).

(1) Spanish term for various types of trumpet. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance the word denoted a short, straight trumpet. During the Baroque period the term was applied to the folded trumpet when the instrument was used in art music. It was pitched in D (and C) in Royal Chapel scores until the advent of multiple crooks. The term continued in use during the 19th century; the keyed trumpet, for example, was known as the clarín de llaves. Subsequently the term was restricted to army use and, strictly speaking applies to the natural cavalry trumpet, although under the influence of the French term clairon it is sometimes applied loosely to the bugle (corneta). The instrument is used particularly in cavalry formations to embellish the calls of the trompeta.

(2) A valveless trumpet of Oaxaca, Mexico.

(3) A side-blown, straight trumpet up to 2 metres long, similar to the Erke, used in Peru, Ecuador and Chile. The Peruvian instrument has a body made of a single piece of bamboo and a calabash or metal bell. Played in open spaces, it is used to animate religious festivals and communal labour (particularly wheat-threshing in Cajamarca). In Chile it joins with the putu (natural-horn trumpet) and chorimori (bell rattle) to accompany the archaic ritual music of the Atacameño people of the Atacamá Desert. For further discussion of the term, see Clarino.

See also Organ stop.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

B. Kenyon de Pascual, ed.: José de Juan Martínez: Método de Clarín (1830) (Madrid, 1990)

B. Kenyon de Pascual: José de Martínez’s Método de Clarín (1830)HBSJ, v, (1993), 92–106

P. Downey: Concerning the Clarín and the Early Clarines’, HBSJ, vi (1994), 364–6

B. Kenyon de Pascual: Clarines and Trompetas: Some Further Observations’, HBSJ, vii (1995), 100–06

BERYL KENYON DE PASCUAL (1), JOHN M. SCHECHTER (2, 3)