Edward Breffit wrote:

>>I am not sure what you are refewrring to, but in the Brandenburg No. 2,
>>there is the piccolo trumpet --- very high & brilliant-sounding as the
>>name would imply.
>
>Isn't it actually a natural trumpet in F? This has a much more mellow and
>flutelike sound, rather than "brilliant", although piccolo trumpets are
>used in most modern recordings.  Piccolo trumpets were surely not invented
>in Bach's time!

I'd say that if the recording in question uses modern instruments, then
a valved piccolo trumpet would very likely be used in the BC#2.  If a
performance uses period instruments, then a natural trumpet in F is called
for, which is what Bach would have been familiar with.

As for the original question by Andrei Jorza:

>In Bach's Brandenburg Concert 1 in the second Allegro but especially in the
>first allegro from Brandenburg Concert 2 there is a very queerly sounding
>instrument.  It is definitely some kind of a blowing instrument yet I
>couldn't figure it out what.

If it's truly the brass instruments Andrei is thinking of, there is perhaps
a reason why one would think that the same type of instrument is playing in
both the First and Second Concertos.  The First uses hunting horns in F,
the Second a trumpet in F.  But both play often in a very high register, so
as to be in an area of these instruments' natural harmonics such that they
can play something approximating a full scale in their original, valveless
configurations with which Bach was familiar.  Even though the horns would
be pitched an actual octave lower, the perceived effect is very brilliant
for both instruments and may sound similar to some folks.

But even in those days, a trumpet pitched in F was not a very common thing.
Partly for this reason, some scholarship has suggested that an earlier
version of the BC#2 may have specified the hunting horn in F as the brass
solo instrument, just like the ones used in Concerto #1.  I have heard a
performance of the #2 where a horn was used in place of the trumpet, and
while I prefer the use of the trumpet, there's no reason why the horn can't
be substituted.

Bill H.