Clarino and Clarina

Someone asked me the difference between a Clarino and a Clarina.

Broadly,  Clarino (also in variants, such as 'clarion' and 'clairon') can mean:

• a small piccolo trumpet
• a virtuoso style of trumpet playing that involves the higher harmonics, (those from c'' to c''' and above) on a baroque (valveless) trumpet (e.g., in the second Brandenburg Concerto)
• a reed-stop on the organ  

The term goes back to the 12th century for long, straight trumpets. Later, they apparently refer to shorter, narrower-bore instruments.

By the Baroque period, 'clarin' or 'clarino' or sometimes 'claret', came to stand for the uppermost trumpet part in an ensemble, a term occasionally used by Bach.

It was also used by the Viennese Classical composers.

Clarina is an instrument invented in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is a cross between a clarinet and an oboe.  (refer to resource of clarina below.)


Resources: 

Clarina.  Encyclopedia JRank.org. Accessed August 10, 2015.

Sadie, Stanley, Ed.  The Grove Concise Dicitonary of Music , New Updated Edition. London:  Macmillan Publishers, 1994.