The trompette militaire is a loud majestic sounding

organ stop An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air (known as ''wind'') to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be "on" (admitting the passage of air ...

, with brassy, penetrating tone. It is noted for its installation in

Liverpool Anglican Cathedral Liverpool Cathedral is the Cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool, and the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. It may be referred to as the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool (as recorded in the ...

, on the fifth manual of the Henry Willis Organ in

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and in the 1968 rebuild of the organ of

Exeter Cathedral Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 140 ...

. At St Paul's, the stop was a gift of Henry Willis at the time of the 1930 rebuild, the pipework being bought in from America and placed with 30 inches of wind pressure in the North East Quarter Gallery in the Dome. The Liverpool trompette militaire was the gift of Professor Alan Dronsfield and was installed in the Corona gallery, 100 ft above the cathedral floor, in 1997. Until comparatively recently, the organ of Exeter Cathedral also had a trompette militaire in the

minstrels' gallery A minstrels' gallery is a form of balcony, often inside the great hall of a castle or manor house, and used to allow musicians (originally minstrels) to perform, sometimes discreetly hidden from the guests below. Notable examples *A rare example ...

above the nave. In the most recent rebuild of the Exeter instrument the stop has been renamed simply "trompette" and has been complemented with a diapason chorus forming a nave division, all playable from the main console on the medieval screen.

References

Reed type organ stops {{FreeReed-instrument-stub