Sackbut Timbre

In my last Horn Diary I talked about enjoying blending the sound of the horn with that of a chorus much more than blending it with the sound of a concert band.

In the sackbut entry in Wikipedia there's this about the timbre of that precursor to the trombone:

Mersenne wrote in 1636, "It should be blown by a skillful musician so that it may not imitate the sounds of the trumpet, but rather assimilate itself to the sweetness of the human voice, lest it should emit a warlike rather than a peaceful sound."