A type of mouth-blown free-reed instrument. It is worked with piston valves, and is named after its inventor Max Bernhardt Martin of Markneukirchen who originally conceived such instruments (1911) for car horns. The instrument consists of a number of conical brass horns, each containing a free-reed which sounds at a certain pitch and which may be selected by a piston valve placed between the horns and the mouthpiece. In the 1920s models able to play melodies were played in ensembles (Schalmei-Kapellen) and spread quickly, especially in working-class Turn und Arbeitersportvereine, and were adopted by the German Communist Party (KPD) and cultivated in East Germany until the 1960s. For further information see C. Ahrens, E. Honecker and U. Lindenberg: ‘Vor 60 Jahren patentiert: die Martintrompete’, IZ, xli (1987), 743–5.
MARTIN KIRNBAUER