In the Renaissance, like today, there were certain ideas about which instruments were appropriate for whom. For example, today most people feel that the electric guitar belongs to a different category or class than a saxophone, and that a saxophone falls into a different area than a violin. The analogy is different because we currently live a theoretically classless society, and Renaissance Italians most certainly did not, but the similarity in assigning certain instruments to certain classes remains. It is clear is that the loud wind instruments of the pifarri and trombetti, in all their manifestations, were considered lower-class instruments and not quite appropriate for genteel society. This fact might also explain the lack of documentation regarding the ensembles as well as why they have been ignored by many musicologists.
Almost all written sources of the period that even mention wind instruments in a theoretical context (as opposed to a simple documentation of a pifarri's performance) are not particularly positive about them. For instance A. Agarazzi wrote in 1607:
This is one of many denigrating comments that writers and the more theoretical musicians of the Renaissance recorded for posterity. The wind instruments are apparently so musically insignificant that the Agarazzi feels as though they are not even worth commenting upon. The exception of the organ is interesting, as most modern musicians would not really categorize the organ as a wind instrument, despite the fact it is powered by air. However, the organ is exempt of the fatal flaws of wind instruments, mainly that other wind instruments are hard to keep in tune, subject to the vagaries of human breath, and are "great and noisy".
One of the premier writers of the Renaissance was Baldassare Castiglione, who wrote a book called Il Cortegiano (The Courtier) which was published in 1514. Castiglione was something of a Miss Manners for the Renaissance, not only in Italy but across Europe. Il Cortegiano was a handbook describing, via a dialogue, how the perfect courtier should act, think and speak. The book was both well published and widely read. It was even translated into English in 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby; a sign of its international influence. The publication had a very similar opinion to A. Agarazzi regarding the status of wind instruments. Castiglione wrote that part singing is a good attribute for a courtier, that singing with the lute is better, that playing instruments with frets is enjoyable, and that viols are delightful. The sole negative opinion Castiglione offers about music at all was expressed about wind instruments, although in a very roundabout way, "Yet the more cunning is he [the courtier] upon them [string instruments], the better it is for him, without meddling much with the instruments that Minerva and Alcibiades refused, because it seemeth they are noisome." The instruments which Minerva and Alcibiades refused were wind instruments. This quote is significant not only because it advises against upper class involvement with wind instruments, but also because it does so in such a desultory manner, again indicating their insignificance.
This attitude towards wind instruments is well and widely known in the works of the scholars studying the music of the Renaissance, for example E. Kenton says, ". . .singers were in any case considered more important people than instrumentalists."Kenton, p. 91 Carter says that ". . .instrumentalists. . . [were] practitioners of a kind of music less noble than music with a text."Carter p. 165 P. Young says in his introduction, "Today we are amused by the fact that most strings, in particular the lute, were considered genteel and therefore suitable for the nobility to play, whereas winds were consigned to the less well-born."Look Scholars are in general agreement that wind instruments were not of the same class nor held in the same esteem as their string brethren, or even as the human voice.
Indeed, it may even have been considered inappropriate for a lady to patronize such "loud" instrumentalists. Isabella D'Este's unwillingness to tip "bufoons, clowns or trumpeters"M&M p. 144-145 is as much a statement on the loud instruments as it is slander on "bufoons" and clowns. The conclusion is drawn by Prizer that Isabella's patronage of secular vocal music was a reflection of the fact that the societal constraints of her period prevented her from maintaining her own chapel or her own band of pifarri.
Like many distinctions, apparently the prohibition against women's involvement with wind instruments appears to have disintegrated as the Renaissance wore on. There are records that four ladies (and they are described as ladies) from Vicenza not only sang well, but also played cornetts and trombones in a production of Oedipo Tiranno in 1585. Thus, either the low-brow status of wind instruments had changed since Isabella's time, or societal constraints upon women had lessened enough to permit them to play the lower class instruments.
There are very few sources that mitigate the low status of loud wind instruments. One period letter, c. 1580, from Giovanni de'Barti to Giulio Caccini gives some credit to the wind instruments by stating that; "Wind instruments, as more nearly imitating the human voice, are given preference over the others by Aristotle in his Problems." Strunk, p. 296 This cannot be taken too far, however, since the only merit of these wind instruments is their similarity to the human voice. Obviously, then, the human voice is still to be preferred over these acceptable imitators.
While wind instruments were not given the highest degree of respect, many players of the instruments might hope for slightly better status. Trombetti players could be called upon to be diplomats and serve in full diplomatic function as a liaison between two courts. Some of the trombetti were relatively well-paid. While the situation of small-town pifarri was fairly undesirable, their court brethren were in great demand and could become wealthy from not only salaries, but tips and large inducements of land or money. The pifarri players of St. Marks were not doomed to poverty or disrespect, as the promotion of the cornettist Bassano to a position at the seminary makes clear. Not only that, but many of the less famous players at St. Marks had the opportunity to hold second jobs, "The musicians at St. Marks were naturally in demand outside their own church, and we find their names turning up as the temporary, and even permanent, employees of other bodies." Giovanni, p. 188 It is important to reiterate that the social status and remuneration of wind instrumentalists depended in large part upon their merit as musicians and diplomats, as well as upon the instrumentalists' personalities and abilities.