The Cornopean is a solo and ensemble chorus reed of 8' pitch,
invented by William Hill of London for his Swell divisions, and
much favored by Henry Willis, who perfected it. It is supposedly
imitative of the orchestral cornet, or cornet à pistons,
originally a post horn with valves. The date of Hill's invention
is not known, but must be between the mid-1820's, when the
orchestral cornet was developed, and 1834, the date of the
earliest known example. The Cornopean is essentially a Trumpet
of larger scale, having the typical inverted conical resonators.
Tonally it lies between the Trumpet and the Horn, though often
the name is used interchangeably with Trumpet. Its reeds should
be of the closed variety, with thick tongues, and harmonic-
length resonators in the treble. The name Cornopean comes from
the Latin cornus (“horn”) and the English paean, a hymn of
praise. Wedgwood reports that in Germany the Cornopean used to
be a large-scale flue stop with a horn-like tone, similar to the
Cor de Nuit. Audsley quotes A