![P1084426](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/P1084426.jpg)
A horn is any of a family of
musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
s made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other
brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin a ...
s such as the
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
, the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is
conical rather than
cylindrical
A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base.
A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...
. In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any
wind instrument
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...
, and a section of
brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
or
woodwind instrument
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and Reed ...
s, or a mixture of the two, is called a
horn section
A horn section is a group of musicians playing horns. In an orchestra or concert band, it refers to the musicians who play the "French" horn, and in a British-style brass band it is the tenor horn players. In many popular music genres, the te ...
in these contexts.
Types
Variations include:
*
Lur
A lur, also lure or lurr, is a long natural blowing horn without finger holes that is played with a brass-type embouchure. Lurs can be straight or curved in various shapes. The purpose of the curves was to make long instruments easier to car ...
(prehistoric)
*
Shofar
A shofar ( ; from he, שׁוֹפָר, ) is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish religious purposes. Like the modern bugle, the shofar lacks pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the ...
*Roman horns:
**
Cornu
**
Buccina
A buccina ( lat, buccina) or bucina ( lat, būcina, link=no), anglicized buccin or bucine, is a brass instrument that was used in the ancient Roman army, similar to the cornu. An ''aeneator'' who blew a buccina was called a "buccinator" or "buci ...
*
Dung chen
*
Dord
The word ''dord'' is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the '' New International Dictionary'', second edition (1934). That ...
*
Sringa
The Sringa, also known as tutari, ranasringa, blowhorn, sig, singa, kurudutu or kombu, is an ancient Indian musical instrument. It is a type of horn wind instrument.
Construction
There are two shape types of bugles, one made in "S" shape, and the ...
*
Nyele
*
Wazza
The wazza, also referred to as al-Wazza, is a type of natural horn played in Sudanese music. The wazza is a long wind instrument, constructed by joining several wooden tubes to form an elaborate gourd trumpet, and while blown, it is also tapped fo ...
*
Alphorn
The alphorn or alpenhorn or alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a straight several-meter-long wooden natural horn of conical bore, with a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece. Traditionally the Alphorn was made of one single piece, or two parts ...
*
Cornett
The cornett, cornetto, or zink is an early wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. It is not to be confused wi ...
*
Serpent
Serpent or The Serpent may refer to:
* Snake, a carnivorous reptile of the suborder Serpentes
Mythology and religion
* Sea serpent, a monstrous ocean creature
* Serpent (symbolism), the snake in religious rites and mythological contexts
* Serp ...
*
Ophicleide
The ophicleide ( ) is a family of conical-bore keyed brass instruments invented in early 19th century France to extend the keyed bugle into the alto, bass and contrabass ranges. Of these, the bass ophicleide in C or B took root over the cours ...
*
Natural horn
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the predecessor to the modern-day (French) horn (differentiated by its lack of valves). Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century the natural horn evolved as a separation from the trump ...
**
Bugle
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, normally having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure.
History
The bugle developed from early musical or communication ...
**
Post horn
The post horn (''also'' post-horn) is a valveless cylindrical brass instrument with a cupped mouthpiece. The instrument was used to signal the arrival or departure of a post rider or mail coach. It was used especially by postilions of the 18th ...
*
French horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...
*
Vienna horn
The Vienna horn (german: Wiener Horn) is a type of musical horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria, for playing orchestral or classical music. It is used throughout Vienna, including the Vienna Philharmonic
The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; german: ...
*
Wagner tuba
The Wagner tuba is a four-valve brass instrument named after and commissioned by Richard Wagner. It combines technical features of both standard tubas and French horns, though despite its name, the Wagner tuba is more similar to the latter, and ...
*
Saxhorn
The saxhorn is a family of valved brass instruments that have conical bores and deep cup-shaped mouthpieces. The saxhorn family was developed by Adolphe Sax, who is also known for creating the saxophone family. The sound of the saxhorn has a ...
s, including:
**
Alto horn
The tenor horn (British English; alto horn in American English, Althorn in Germany; occasionally referred to as E horn) is a brass instrument in the saxhorn family and is usually pitched in E. It has a bore that is mostly conical, like the flug ...
(UK: tenor horn), pitched in E
**
Baritone horn
The baritone horn, or sometimes just called baritone, is a low-pitched brass instrument in the saxhorn family.Robert Donington, "The Instruments of Music", (pp. 113ff ''The Family of Bugles'') 2nd ed., Methuen, London, 1962 It is a piston-val ...
, pitched in B
*
Valved bugles, including
**
contrabass bugle
*
Tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
*
Sousaphone
The sousaphone ( ) is a brass instrument in the tuba family. Created around 1893 by J. W. Pepper at the direction of American bandleader John Philip Sousa (after whom the instrument was then named), it was designed to be easier to play than ...
History
![Britannica Horn Trajan's Column Reliefs](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Britannica_Horn_Trajan%27s_Column_Reliefs.png)
As the name indicates, people originally used to blow on the actual
horn
Horn most often refers to:
*Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound
** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments
*Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...
s of animals before starting to emulate them in metal or other materials. This original usage survives in the
shofar
A shofar ( ; from he, שׁוֹפָר, ) is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish religious purposes. Like the modern bugle, the shofar lacks pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the ...
( he, שופר), a ram's horn, which plays an important role in
Jewish religious rituals. The genus of animal-horn instruments to which the shofar belongs is called () in Hebrew, in
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
, and () in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
.
The ''
olifant'' or ''oliphant'' (an abbreviation of the French ''cor d'olifant''/''oliphant'', "
elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
horn") was the name applied in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
to
ivory
Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is ...
hunting or signalling horns made from elephants'
tusk
Tusks are elongated, continuously growing front teeth that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canine teeth, as with pigs and walruses, or, in the case of elephants, elongated incisors. Tusks share c ...
s. Apparently of Asian origin, they reached Europe from
Byzantium
Byzantium () or Byzantion ( grc, Βυζάντιον) was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' cont ...
in the tenth or eleventh century, and are first mentioned in French literature in the early 12th century. In Europe they came to be symbols of royalty.
From late antiquity there are mentions of "alpine horns", but the earliest secure description of the wooden instrument now called an "
alphorn
The alphorn or alpenhorn or alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a straight several-meter-long wooden natural horn of conical bore, with a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece. Traditionally the Alphorn was made of one single piece, or two parts ...
" dates from the sixteenth century.
[Sibyl Marcuse, "Alphorn", ''Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary'', corrected edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975). .] This description by the naturalist
Conrad Gessner
Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...
calls the instrument a ''
lituus
The word ''lituus'' originally meant a curved augural staff, or a curved war-trumpet in the ancient Latin language. This Latin word continued in use through the 18th century as an alternative to the vernacular names of various musical instruments ...
alpinus'' and says it is "nearly eleven feet long, made from two pieces of wood slightly curved and hollowed out, fitted together and skillfully bound with
osiers". Nevertheless, one modern authority says that at the time it was a straight instrument eleven feet long, and this form persisted in Austria until the nineteenth century. The more familiar form, with an upturned bell, was developed in Switzerland in the eighteenth century. The practice of making these instruments in different sizes, to be played together in part music, originated in 1826.
Similar wooden instruments, used by shepherds for signalling, are known in Romania by the name ''
bucium''. They are made in straight, hooked, and S-shaped forms, in lengths between 1.5 and 3 meters. A variant of the straight version is called ''tulnic''.
Metal instruments modelled on animal horns survive from as early as the 10th century BC, in the form of
lur
A lur, also lure or lurr, is a long natural blowing horn without finger holes that is played with a brass-type embouchure. Lurs can be straight or curved in various shapes. The purpose of the curves was to make long instruments easier to car ...
er (a modern name devised by archaeologists). Nearly fifty of these curved bronze horns have been excavated from burial sites, mostly in Scandinavia, since the first was discovered in 1797. Many are in unison pairs, curved in opposite directions. Because their makers left no written histories, their use and manner of playing is unknown. The lur was likely known to the Etruscans, noted as bronze-workers from the 8th century BC, who in turn were credited by the Romans with the invention of their horns and trumpets, including long curved horns in the form of a letter C or G. Depictions of these instruments are found from the 5th century BC onward on Etruscan funerary monuments. The Etruscan name for them is unknown, but the Romans called them ''
buccina
A buccina ( lat, buccina) or bucina ( lat, būcina, link=no), anglicized buccin or bucine, is a brass instrument that was used in the ancient Roman army, similar to the cornu. An ''aeneator'' who blew a buccina was called a "buccinator" or "buci ...
'' and ''
cornu''. The latter name is the Latin word for "horn", and the source of the name of the musical instrument in many Romance languages: French ''cor'', Italian ''corno'', Provençal ''corn''. Very old metal instruments similar in form to both the lurer and the cornu, often also with ceremonial or military uses, are known on the Indian subcontinent by a variety of names: ''
ramsinga
The ransingha or ransinga is a type of primitive trumpet made of copper or copper alloys, used in both India and Nepal. The instrument is made of two metal curves, joined together to form an "S" shape. It may also be reassembled to form a cresce ...
'', ''
ransingha
The ransingha or ransinga is a type of primitive trumpet made of copper or copper alloys, used in both India and Nepal. The instrument is made of two metal curves, joined together to form an "S" shape. It may also be reassembled to form a cresce ...
'', ''
sringa
The Sringa, also known as tutari, ranasringa, blowhorn, sig, singa, kurudutu or kombu, is an ancient Indian musical instrument. It is a type of horn wind instrument.
Construction
There are two shape types of bugles, one made in "S" shape, and the ...
'', ''ranasringa'' (Sanskrit for "war-horn"), ''kurudutu'', and ''kombu''.
![Wenceslas Hollar - Five hunting horns](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Five_hunting_horns.jpg)
Early metal horns were less complex than modern horns. By the early 17th century, there were two main types of hunting horns, both designed to deal with the problem of providing a tube long enough to allow playing higher partials, while at the same time allowing the instruments to be played on horseback.
Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...
calls these ''trompe'', made in a crescent shape, and the ''cor à plusieurs tours'', a tightly coiled instrument in spiral form.
[Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti, "Horn", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by ]Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001): 2: "History to c1800", (i) Development of the Natural Horn. The tightly coiled (or spiral) form of horn was never very popular in France, but both there and in Germany was usually called a "trumpet". In German, the word "trumpet" was usually qualified by "Italian" or "hunting", to distinguish these coiled horns from the military or courtly trumpet, though spiral trumpets (sometimes called ) pitched in D and played in clarino style also existed. The earliest surviving horn of the tightly spiralled type, dating from about 1570, is by Valentin Springer, though it is described as early as 1511 by
Sebastian Virdung
Sebastian Virdung (born c. 1465) was a German composer and theorist on musical instruments. He is grouped among the composers known as the Colorists. He studied in Heidelberg as a scholar of Johannes von Soest at the chapel of the ducal court. Af ...
.
Around the middle of the seventeenth century instruments began to appear in the form of brass tubes wound into a single open hoop, with a flared exit opening (the bell). Although these came to be associated especially with France, the first known example was made in 1667 by the German maker Starck, in Nuremberg. In French, they were most often called ''trompe de chasse'', though ''cor de chasse'' is also frequently found. In Germany, they came to be called ''Waldhörner''. Because these horns were intended to be played on horseback during a hunt the mouthpiece was not removable. It was soldered to a mouthpipe, which in turn was often soldered to the body of the instrument and strengthened by a crosspiece, as was also the bell, rendering the horn more solid.
The sound they produced was called a recheat. Change of pitch was effected entirely by the lips (the horn not being equipped with valves until the 19th century). Without valves, only the notes within the
harmonic series are available.
![Playing horn at Palace Temple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Playing_horn_at_Palace_Temple._Mandi%2C_Himachal_Pradesh.jpg)
Since the only notes available were those on the harmonic series of one of those pitches, they had no ability to play in different keys. The remedy for this limitation was the use of
crooks, i.e., sections of tubing of differing length which, when inserted between the mouthpiece and lead pipe, increased the length of the instrument, and thus lowered its pitch. The earliest surviving crooked horn was made by the Viennese maker Michael Leichamschneider and is dated 1721.
[Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti, "Horn", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by ]Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001): 2: "History to c1800", (iii) "Crooks and Hand Technique". However, Leichamschneider is known to have been making crooked horns as early as 1703, when he sold "a pair of great new ''Jägerhorn''" equipped with four double crooks and four tuning bits to the Abbot of Krems. In England, the crooked horn appeared as early as 1704, when it was called ''corno cromatico'' or, because of its origin and because it was most often played by German musicians (in particular the Messing family, who popularized the instrument in London beginning around 1730), "German horn". In cases where it was necessary to specify the older, hooped horn without crooks, the English called it the "French horn".
By the second decade of the eighteenth century horns had become regular members of continental orchestras. In 1713
Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764) was a German composer, singer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.
Early life and career
The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education ...
stated, "the lovely, majestic hunting horns (Ital. ''Cornette di Caccia'', Gall. ''Cors de Chasse'') have now become very fashionable, in church music just as much as in theatre and chamber music, partly because they are not so coarse as trumpets, but also partly because they can be managed with greater ''facilité''. The most useful have the same ''ambitus'' above F as the trumpets have above C. However, they sound more poetic and are more satisfying than the deafening and shrieking ''clarini'' ... because they are a perfect fifth lower in pitch."
One performing difficulty raised by the use of crooks inserted at the mouthpiece end of the instrument was that players were obliged to hold the horn in a way that the crooks would not fall out. For the hunting horn played on horseback, the left hand held the reins while the right hand gripped the body of the horn, but with crooks the left hand was required to hold them and the instrument securely together, with the right hand grasping the bell or the body of the instrument. The solution came with the creation of the ''Inventionshorn'' in about 1753 by the famous horn player
Anton Joseph Hampel Anton Joseph (A. J.) Hampel (1710 – 30 March 1771) was a horn player who is generally credited with having developed, somewhere between 1750 and 1760, the technique of hand-stopping which allows natural horns to play fully chromatically. Thi ...
in collaboration with the Dresden instrument maker Johann Georg Werner. In this type of instrument, the relationship between the mouthpiece and lead pipe is usually undisturbed and a series of cylindrical-bore sliding crooks are fitted into the central portion of the instrument to lower the pitch from E downwards. These sliding crooks also had the function of tuning slides, obviating the need for tuning "bits" inserted before or after the crook. In order to raise the pitch above F, however, it was necessary to insert a new, shorter lead pipe, acting as a crook. This design was adapted and improved by the Parisian maker Raoux in about 1780, and adopted by many soloists in France. This was called the ''cor solo'', and was distinguished by the use of just five crooks for playing in the most common keys for solo compositions, G, F, E, E, and D.
Orchestral horns are traditionally grouped into "high" horn and "low" horn pairs. Players specialize to negotiate the unusually wide range required of the instrument. Formerly, in certain situations, composers called for two pairs of horns in two different keys. For example, a composer might call for two horns in C and two in E for a piece in C minor, in order to gain harmonics of the relative major unavailable on the C horns. Eventually, two pairs of horns became the standard, and from this tradition of two independent pairs, each with its own "high" and "low" horn, came the modern convention of writing both the first and third parts above the second and fourth.
In the mid-18th century, horn players began to insert the right hand into the bell to change the effective length of the instrument, adjusting the tuning up to the distance between two adjacent harmonics depending on how much of the opening was covered. This technique, known as
hand-stopping
Hand-stopping is a List of horn techniques, technique by which a natural horn can be made to produce notes outside of its normal Harmonic series (music), harmonic series. By inserting the hand, cupped, into the bell, the player can reduce the pitc ...
, is generally credited to the self-same Anton Joseph Hampel who created the ''Inventionshorn''. It was first developed around 1750, and was refined and carried to much of Europe by the influential
Giovanni Punto
Jan Václav Stich, better known as Giovanni Punto (28 September 1746 in Žehušice, Bohemia – 16 February 1803 in Prague, Bohemia) was a Czech horn player and a pioneer of the hand-stopping technique which allows natural horns to play a greater ...
. This offered more possibilities for playing notes not on the harmonic series. By the early classical period, the horn had become an instrument capable of much melodic playing. A notable example of this are the four
Mozart Horn Concerti and Concert Rondo (K. 412, 417, 477, 495, 371), wherein melodic chromatic tones are used, owing to the growing prevalence of hand-stopping and other newly emerging techniques.
In 1818 rotary valves were introduced by
Heinrich Stölzel
Heinrich David Stölzel (7 September 1777 – 16 February 1844) was a German horn player who developed some of the first valves for brass instruments. He developed the first valve for a brass musical instrument, the Stölzel valve, in 1818, a ...
and Friedrich Blümel (later, in 1839, piston valves were applied to the horn by François Périnet), initially to overcome problems associated with changing crooks during a performance. Valves' unreliability, musical taste, and players' distrust, among other reasons, slowed their adoption into mainstream. Many traditional conservatories and players refused to use them at first, claiming that the valveless horn, or ''natural horn,'' was a better instrument. Some musicians, specializing in period instruments, still use a natural horn when playing in original performance styles, seeking to recapture the sound and tenor in which an older piece was written.
The use of
valves
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...
, however, opened up a great deal more flexibility in playing in different keys; in effect, the horn became an entirely different instrument, fully chromatic for the first time. Valves were originally used primarily as a means to play in different keys without crooks, not for harmonic playing. That is reflected in compositions for horns, which only began to include chromatic passages in the late 19th century. When valves were invented, generally, the French made narrower-bored horns with piston valves and the Germans made larger-bored horns with rotary valves.
Variety
The variety in horn history includes fingerhole horns, the natural horn, Russian horns, French horn, Vienna horn, mellophone, marching horn, and Wagner tuba.
Fingerhole horns
![N138326 - Bockhorn - okänd tillverkare - foto Sofi Sykfont](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/N138326_-_Bockhorn_-_ok%C3%A4nd_tillverkare_-_foto_Sofi_Sykfont.jpg)
Animal horns adapted as signalling instruments were used from prehistoric times. Archaeologists have discovered cow horns with fingerholes drilled in the side (providing a more complete musical scale) dating from the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
. This type of rustic instrument is found down to the present day all over the Baltic region of Europe, and in some parts of Africa. In Scandinavia it is known by many names: ''björnhorn'', ''
bukkehorn'', ''fingerhorn'', ''lekhorn'', ''låthorn'', ''prillarhorn'', ''soittotorvi'', ''spelhorn'', ''tjuthorn'', ''tuthorn'', ''vallhorn'', and many others. In Estonia it is called and by the
Bongo people . Descriptions in French are found from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries of instruments called ''coradoiz'' (= modern French ''cor à doigts''), which are precursors of the
cornett
The cornett, cornetto, or zink is an early wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. It is not to be confused wi ...
.
![Hra-na-cink-evangkostel-v-Miroslavi2011](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Hra-na-cink-evangkostel-v-Miroslavi2011.jpg)
The cornett, which became one of the most popular wind instruments of the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, was developed from the fingerhole-horn idea. In its most common form it was a gently curved instrument, carved in two halves from wood. The pieces were then glued together and wrapped in black leather (hence the term "black cornett"), and a detachable mouthpiece added. Another variant, called the "mute cornett", was turned from a single piece of wood with the mouthpiece an integral part of the instrument. Because the types of wood used were usually light in colour, these were sometimes referred to as "white cornetts". Amongst the earliest representations of the cornett, showing its characteristic octagonal exterior, is a carving in Lincoln Cathedral from about 1260, which shows an angel apparently playing two cornetti at once. The earliest use of the name in English is in ''
Le Morte d'Arthur
' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Rou ...
'' from about 1400 where, as in most subsequent sources it is spelled with a single T: "cornet". The spelling with two Ts is a modern convention, to avoid confusion with the nineteenth-century valved brass instrument of that name, though in Old French the spelling ''cornette'' is found. The name is a diminutive derived the Latin ''cornu'', "horn".
In the sixteenth century still larger versions of the cornett were devised. In order to put the fingerholes within reach of the human hand, these bass instruments required so many curves they acquired the name "
serpent
Serpent or The Serpent may refer to:
* Snake, a carnivorous reptile of the suborder Serpentes
Mythology and religion
* Sea serpent, a monstrous ocean creature
* Serpent (symbolism), the snake in religious rites and mythological contexts
* Serp ...
". Toward the end of the eighteenth century various attempts were made to improve the serpent. An upright version, built on the pattern of the bassoon and made sometimes of wood, sometimes of metal, sometimes a combination of the two, were called "bass horn" or "
Russian bassoon". In the nineteenth century, an all-metal version with larger tone holes closed by keywork was called an
ophicleide
The ophicleide ( ) is a family of conical-bore keyed brass instruments invented in early 19th century France to extend the keyed bugle into the alto, bass and contrabass ranges. Of these, the bass ophicleide in C or B took root over the cours ...
(from the Greek ''ophis'' (ὄφις) "serpent" + ''kleis'' (κλείς) "key" = "keyed serpent"). The ophicleide only remained in use until the middle of the nineteenth century when it was eclipsed by the superior valved brass instruments.
Natural horn
Natural horn
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the predecessor to the modern-day (French) horn (differentiated by its lack of valves). Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century the natural horn evolved as a separation from the trump ...
s include a variety of valveless, keyless instruments such as
bugle
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, normally having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure.
History
The bugle developed from early musical or communication ...
s,
posthorn
The post horn (''also'' post-horn) is a valveless cylindrical brass instrument with a cupped mouthpiece. The instrument was used to signal the arrival or departure of a post rider or mail coach. It was used especially by postilions of the 18t ...
s, and hunting horns of many different shapes. One type of hunting horn, with relatively long tubing bent into a single hoop (or sometimes a double hoop), is the ancestor of the modern orchestral and band horns. Beginning in the early 18th century, the player could change key by adding crooks to change the length of tubing. It is essentially a hunting horn, with its pitch controlled by air speed, aperture (opening of the lips through which air passes) and the use of the right hand moving in and out of the bell. Today it is played as a
period instrument
In the historically informed performance movement, musicians perform classical music using restored or replicated versions of the instruments for which it was originally written. Often performances by such musicians are said to be "on authentic ...
. The natural horn can only play from a single harmonic series at a time because there is only one length of tubing available to the horn player. A proficient player can indeed alter the pitch by partially muting the bell with the right hand, thus enabling the player to reach some notes that are not part of the instrument's natural harmonic series—of course this technique also affects the quality of the tone.
Russian horns
![Russische Hoerner im Peterhof 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Russische_Hoerner_im_Peterhof_2008.JPG)
In 1751, Prince Narishkin, Master of the Hunt to
Empress Elizabeth of Russia
Elizabeth Petrovna (russian: Елизаве́та (Елисаве́та) Петро́вна) (), also known as Yelisaveta or Elizaveta, reigned as Empress of Russia from 1741 until her death in 1762. She remains one of the most popular Russian ...
, had a set of sixteen carefully tuned metal horns made to ensure that his huntsmen would sound a harmonious D-major chord while signalling to each other. He then got the idea of enlisting a Bohemian horn-player, J. A. Mareš, who was in service with the Imperial court in St. Petersburg, to organize these new horns into a band. Maresch had made a second set of thirty-two (or perhaps thirty-seven) horns, each capable of playing a different, single note—the second harmonic of the instrument—from a C-major scale covering several octaves. (Later the size of the band was increased to sixty horns encompassing five octaves.) The instruments were straight or slightly curved horns made of copper or brass, had a wide conical bore, and were played with a cupped trumpet-type mouthpiece. A metal cap fixed to the bell end was used to adjust the tuning. Each man in the band was trained to play his note in turn, similar to the way in which a group of
handbell
A handbell is a bell designed to be rung by hand. To ring a handbell, a ringer grasps the bell by its slightly flexible handle – traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic – and moves the arm to make the hinged cla ...
ringers perform melodies by each sounding their bells at a predetermined moment. This horn band, effectively a giant human music-box of the sort only feasible in a slave culture, played its first public concert in 1753 or 1755 and debuted officially at the Grand Hunt concert in 1757, creating a fashion that spread outside of Russia and continued for eighty years. With proper training, such a horn ensemble was capable of playing relatively complex music in full harmony. The Russian nobility developed a taste for horn bands, which were sometimes sold as a body—the performers along with horns—since most of the players were serfs. Some bands toured Europe and the British Isles, playing arrangements of standard concert repertory and Russian folk music, as well as original compositions. Although received with praise for their accomplishment, they were also criticized for "reducing man to the level of a machine". In Eastern Germany, workmen's bands modified the technique of these horns by adding the upper octave to each instrument's note, and the use of hand-stopping for the smaller horns to add one or two lower semitones.
German horn
The German horn is the most common type of orchestral horn, and is ordinarily known simply as the "horn". The ''double horn in F/B♭'' is the version most used by professional bands and orchestras. A musician who plays the German horn is called a
horn player
This list of horn players and pedagogues includes notable players of French horn, German horn, natural horn, Vienna horn, tenor (alto) horn, and alphorn.
B
*Radek Baborák, former Principal horn Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Phil. Orch ...
(or, less frequently, a hornist). Pitch is controlled through the adjustment of lip tension in the mouthpiece and the operation of valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra tubing. German horns have lever-operated
rotary valve
A rotary valve (also called rotary-motion valve) is a type of valve in which the rotation of a passage or passages in a transverse plug regulates the flow of liquid or gas through the attached pipes. The common stopcock is the simplest form of ro ...
s. The backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound, in concert situations, in contrast to the more-piercing quality of the trumpet.
Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, which is tuned to F or less commonly B. The more common "double horn" is found almost exclusively in the German design, only rarely in the French horn, and never in the Vienna horn. It has a fourth valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B. Although first developed by Paxman, a British firm, triple horns with five valves are also of the German-horn type, tuned in F, B, and a
descant
A descant, discant, or is any of several different things in music, depending on the period in question; etymologically, the word means a voice (''cantus'') above or removed from others. The Harvard Dictionary of Music states:
A descant is a ...
E or F. Also common are ''descant'' doubles, which typically provide B and alto-F branches. This configuration provides a high-range horn while avoiding the additional complexity and weight of a triple.
French horn
![Three valves horn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Three_valves_horn.jpg)
The French horn (as distinct from the German and Vienna horns), is also usually referred to simply as the "horn" by orchestral players. The bore of the French horn is small, between 10.8 and 11 mm, compared to 11.5 mm for the German horn, but not as small as the Vienna horn at 10.7 mm. These narrow-bore French instruments are equipped with
piston valves
Piston valves are one form of valve used to control the flow of steam within a steam engine or locomotive. They control the admission of steam into the cylinders and its subsequent exhausting, enabling a locomotive to move under its own power ...
(also called Périnet valves, after their inventor), unlike today's more usual orchestral (German) horns, which have rotary valves. A musician who plays the French horn, like the players of the German and Vienna horns (confusingly also sometimes called French horns), is called a
horn player
This list of horn players and pedagogues includes notable players of French horn, German horn, natural horn, Vienna horn, tenor (alto) horn, and alphorn.
B
*Radek Baborák, former Principal horn Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Phil. Orch ...
(or less frequently, a hornist).
Three valves control the flow of air in the ''single horn'', which is tuned to F or less commonly B. Although double French horns do exist, they are rare.
A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece. Most of the time, the mouthpiece is placed in the exact center of the lips, but, because of differences in the formation of the lips and teeth of different players, some tend to play with the mouthpiece slightly off center.
[Farkas, Philip (1956) ''The Art of French Horn Playing'' p. 21] Although the exact side-to-side placement of the mouthpiece varies for most horn players, the up-and-down placement of the mouthpiece is generally two-thirds on the upper lip and one-third on the lower lip.
[ Usually, in order to play higher octave notes, the pressure exerted on the lips from the mouthpiece is increased. But, although some pressure is needed, excessive pressure is not desirable. Playing with excessive pressure makes the playing of the horn sound forced and harsh as well as decreases endurance of the player by about half.
]
Vienna horn
The Vienna horn
The Vienna horn (german: Wiener Horn) is a type of musical horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria, for playing orchestral or classical music. It is used throughout Vienna, including the Vienna Philharmonic
The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; german: ...
is a special horn used primarily in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. Instead of using rotary valve
A rotary valve (also called rotary-motion valve) is a type of valve in which the rotation of a passage or passages in a transverse plug regulates the flow of liquid or gas through the attached pipes. The common stopcock is the simplest form of ro ...
s or piston valve
A "piston valve" is a device used to control the motion of a fluid along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder.
Examples of piston valves are:
* The valves used in many brass instruments
* The va ...
s, it uses the Pumpenvalve (or Vienna Valve), which is a double-piston operating inside the valve slides, and usually situated on the opposite side of the corpus from the player's left hand, and operated by a long pushrod. Unlike the modern horn, which has grown considerably larger internally (for a bigger, broader, and louder tone), and considerably heavier (with the addition of valves and tubing in the case of the double horn) the Vienna horn very closely mimics the size and weight of the natural horn (although the valves do add some weight, they are lighter than rotary valves), even using crooks in the front of the horn, between the mouthpiece and the instrument. Although instead of the full range of keys, Vienna horn players usually use an F crook and it is looked down upon to use others, though switching to an A or B crook for higher pitched music does happen on occasion. Vienna horns are often used with funnel shaped mouthpieces similar to those used on the natural horn, with very little (if any) backbore and a very thin rim. The Viennese horn requires very specialized technique and can be quite challenging to play, even for accomplished players of modern horns. The Vienna horn has a warmer, softer sound than the modern horn. Its pumpen-valves facilitate a continuous transition between notes (glissando
In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the co ...
); conversely, a more precise operating of the valves is required to avoid notes that sound out of tune.
Mellophone
Two instruments are called a ''mellophone.'' The first is an instrument shaped somewhat like a horn, in that it is formed in a circle. It has piston valves and is played with the right hand on the valves. Manufacturing of this instrument sharply decreased in the middle of the twentieth century, and this mellophone (or mellophonium) rarely appears today.
The second instrument is used in modern brass bands and marching bands, and is more accurately called a "marching mellophone" or mellophone. A derivative of the F alto horn
The tenor horn (British English; alto horn in American English, Althorn in Germany; occasionally referred to as E horn) is a brass instrument in the saxhorn family and is usually pitched in E. It has a bore that is mostly conical, like the flug ...
, it is keyed in F. It is shaped like a flugelhorn, with piston valves played with the right hand and a forward-pointing bell. These horns are generally considered better marching instrument
A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, ofte ...
s than regular horns because their position is more stable on the mouth, they project better, and they weigh less. It is primarily used as the middle voice of drum and bugle corps
Drum and bugle corps is a name used to describe several related musical ensembles.
* Drum and bugle corps (modern), a musical marching unit
* Drum and bugle corps (classic), musical ensembles that descended from military bugle and drum units retu ...
. Though they are usually played with a V-cup cornet-like mouthpiece, their range overlaps the common playing range of the horn. This mouthpiece switch makes the mellophone louder, less mellow, and more brassy and brilliant, making it more appropriate for marching bands.
As they are pitched in F or G and their range overlaps that of the horn, mellophones can be used in place of the horn in brass and marching band settings. Mellophones are, however, sometimes unpopular with horn players because the mouthpiece change can be difficult and requires a different embouchure
Embouchure () or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. The word is of ...
. Mouthpiece adapters are available so that a horn mouthpiece can fit into the mellophone lead pipe, but this does not compensate for the many differences that a horn player must adapt to. The bore is generally cylindrical as opposed to the more conical horn; thus, the "feel" of the mellophone can be foreign to a horn player. Another unfamiliar aspect of the mellophone is that it is designed to be played with the right hand instead of the left (although it can be played with the left).
While horn players may be asked to play the mellophone, it is unlikely that the instrument was ever intended as a substitute for the horn, mainly because of the fundamental differences described. As an instrument it compromises between the ability to sound like a horn, while being used like a trumpet or flugelhorn, a tradeoff that sacrifices acoustic properties for ergonomics.
Marching horn
The marching horn is quite similar to the mellophone in shape and appearance, but is pitched in the key of B (the same as the B side of a regular double horn). It is also available in F alto (one octave above the F side of a regular double horn). The marching horn is also normally played with a horn mouthpiece (unlike the mellophone, which needs an adapter to fit the horn mouthpiece). These instruments are primarily used in marching bands so that the sound comes from a forward-facing bell, as dissipation of the sound from the backward-facing bell becomes a concern in open-air environments. Many college marching bands and drum corps, however, use mellophones instead, which, with many marching bands, better balance the tone of the other brass instruments; additionally, mellophones require less special training of trumpet players, who considerably outnumber horn players.
Saxhorns
The saxhorns constitute a family of brass instruments with tapered bores. Pitched in eight alternating sizes in E-flat and B-flat, like saxophone
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...
s, they were originally designed for army use and revolutionized military and brass bands in Europe and America. Developed during the 1840s and 50s, the saxhorn was first patented in Paris in 1845 by Adolphe Sax
Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (; 6 November 1814 – 4 February 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. He played the f ...
, though the validity of his patents was challenged by rival instrument makers during his lifetime. Throughout the mid-1850s, he continued to experiment with the instrument's valve pattern. Later makers, particularly in America, altered the scale and designs sometimes to such an extent as to make it difficult to determine whether the larger sizes of the resulting instruments actually have descended from the saxhorn or the tuba. The tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...
and baritone horn
The baritone horn, or sometimes just called baritone, is a low-pitched brass instrument in the saxhorn family.Robert Donington, "The Instruments of Music", (pp. 113ff ''The Family of Bugles'') 2nd ed., Methuen, London, 1962 It is a piston-val ...
s, amongst other sizes of instruments used in British brass bands, are members of the saxhorn family.
Wagner tuba
The Wagner tuba is a rare brass instrument that is essentially a horn modified to have a larger bell throat and a vertical bell. Despite its name, it is generally not considered part of the tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
family. Invented for Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
specifically for his work Der Ring des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibe ...
, it has since been written for by various other composers, including Bruckner
Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-Germ ...
, Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
and Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
. It uses a horn mouthpiece and is available as a single tuba in B or F, or, more recently, as a double tuba similar to the double horn. Its common range is similar to that of the euphonium
The euphonium is a medium-sized, 3 or 4-valve, often compensating, conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Ancient Greek word ''euphōnos'', meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced" ( ''eu'' means "well" ...
, but its possible range is the same as that of the horn, extending from low F, below the bass clef staff to high C above the treble staff when read in F. These low pedals are substantially easier to play on the Wagner tuba than on the horn.
Repertory
Early history
Amongst the first written records of horn music are hunting-horn signals, which date back to the fourteenth century. The earliest of these is ''The Art of Hunting'' (1327) by William Twiti, who uses syllables such as "moot", "trout", and "trourourout" to describe a number of calls involved in various stages of the hunt. Hardouin de Fontaines-Guerin's treatise ''Le Livre du Trésor de vénerie'' (1394) includes fourteen hunting-horn signals using a notation specially designed to the purpose, consisting of a series of black and white squares. Although Dame Juliana Berners
Juliana Berners, O.S.B., (or Barnes or Bernes) (born 1388), was an English writer on heraldry, hawking and hunting, and is said to have been prioress of the Priory of St Mary of Sopwell, near St Albans in Hertfordshire.
Life and Work
Very lit ...
’s ''Boke of Saint Albans'' (ca. 1345)—also known as the ''Book of Hawkinge, Hunting and Fysshing''—is cited as an even earlier source of notated horn calls,[Horace Fitzpatrick and Peter Downey, "Jagdmusik", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by ]Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001). the copy containing them actually dates from the sixteenth century. As in Hardouin's treatise, the notation of the calls is in a specially designed tablature
Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches.
Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fr ...
. The first occurrence of horn calls in standard musical notation is in the hunting treatise ''La vénerie'' by Jacques du Fouilloux, dated variously as 1561 and 1573, followed soon after in an English translation by George Gascoigne
George Gascoigne (c. 15357 October 1577) was an English poet, soldier and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to t ...
(often misattributed to George Turberville
George Turberville, or Turbervile (about 1540 – before 1597) was an English poet.
Life
He was the second son of Henry Turberville of Winterborne Whitechurch, Dorset, and nephew of James Turberville, Bishop of Exeter. The Turbervilles were an ...
) titled ''The Noble Art of Venerie or Hvnting'' (1575).
Jacques du Fouilloux notates the calls on a single pitch, C4, whereas Gascoigne presents them on D4. Although it is generally accepted that the horns used on the hunt at this early date were only capable of a single note, or at best a striking of the pitch well below and "whooping up to the true pitch", the objection has been raised against a literal, monotonic interpretation of the notation on grounds that many of the calls would be indistinguishable one from another, whereas the hunt participants would need each call to be distinctive, even if we have no direct evidence of melodic variation.
Apart from hunting calls, there is no surviving music from before the seventeenth century that specifies use of the horn. However, there are some allusions to horn calls in vocal and keyboard music. In the late fourteenth century, Italian (a word meaning both "canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
" and "hunt", and cognate with English "chase") sometimes use lively figures on two notes a fourth apart, such as Gherardello da Firenze
Gherardello da Firenze (also Niccolò di Francesco or Ghirardellus de Florentia) ( 1320–1325 – 1362 or 1363) was an Italian composer of the ''Trecento''. He was one of the first composers of the period sometimes known as the '' Italian ars nov ...
's ''Tosto che l'alba'', after the words "suo corno sonava" (sounded his horn). A less certain association is found in the same alternation of two notes a fourth apart in John Bull's ''The King's Hunt'' in the ''Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
The ''Fitzwilliam Virginal Book'' is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i.e., the late Renaissance and very early Baroque. It takes its name from Viscount Fitzwilliam who beque ...
'', copied at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The increased tube length of the ''cor à plusieurs tours'' in the late sixteenth century and with the ''trompe de chasse'' in the middle of the seventeenth, a larger number of pitches became available for horn calls, and these calls are imitated in programme music from the second quarter of the seventeenth century onward, though scored not for actual horns but for strings only. An early example is found in the "Chiamata a la caccia" in Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli (born Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni; 14 February 1602 – 14 January 1676) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian composer, organist and singer of the early Baroque music, Baroque period. He succeeded his teacher Claudio Monteverd ...
’s opera '' Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo'' (1639). A few years later, Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully ( , , ; born Giovanni Battista Lulli, ; – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, guitarist, violinist, and dancer who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he ...
used horn calls in a five-part piece for strings called "Le cors de chasse" in the comédie-ballet ''La Princesse d'Élide'', itself part of the extravagant entertainment titled '' Les plaisirs de l'île enchantée'' (1664). According to another opinion, Lully actually meant the scoring of the "Air des valets des chiens et des chasseurs avec Cors de chasse" to include ''trompes de chasse'', making this the first use of the new instrument in a musical composition, as opposed to hunting signals. An engraving by Israël Silvestre, published ca. 1676, portrays a scene from Lully's work, and is probably the earliest iconographic representation of the hooped horn.
Soon afterward the hooped ''trompe de chasse'' began appearing in ballet and opera orchestras in the Empire and German states. The intrada of a ballet by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c. 1620–1623between 29 February and 20 March 1680) was an Austrian composer and violinist of the middle Baroque era. Almost nothing is known about his early years, but he seems to have arrived in Vienna during the 1630 ...
, performed in Linz on 15 November 1680, was played by violins and hunting horns together, according to the libretto (the music does not survive). Georg Bronner's opera ''Echo und Narcissus'' (1693) and Agostino Steffani’s opera ''I trionfi del fato'' (produced in 1695 in Hanover) also used horns. At about this same time the horn began to appear as a solo instrument. An anonymous ''Sonata da caccia con un cornu'' from before 1680 found in a manuscript in Kroměříž sets a ''cor à plusieurs tours'' against two violins, two violas, and basso continuo, and a ''Sonata venatoria'' from 1684 by Pavel Josef Vejvanovský calls for two , which probably also means spiral horns, though hooped horns are not out of the question. A particularly significant composition is a Concerto à 4 in B by Johann Beer
Johann Beer (also spelled Bähr, Baer, or Behr, Latinized as Ursus or Ursinus; (28 February 1655, in Sankt Georgen – 6 August 1700, in Weissenfels) was an Austrian author, court official and composer.
Biography
Beer was born in Austria to Pro ...
, for ''corne de chasse'', posthorn, two violins, and basso continuo; Beer died in a hunting accident in 1700. His concerto not only combines two different kinds of horn, but the ''corne de chasse'' part is the earliest solo example of a horn in F (sounding a fifth lower than written), which came to be the "classical" size of the instrument. The F horn appears again soon afterward in an aria from Carlo Agostino Badia's opera ''Diana rappacificata'' (Vienna, 1700), where two horns play typical triple-time fanfares. By 1705 the horn was also being used in church music, for example by Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude (; ; born Diderik Hansen Buxtehude; c. 1637 – 9 May 1707) was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal ...
In Lübeck, who in that year called for horns in his cantata ''Templum honoris''.[Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti, "Horn", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by ]Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001): 2: "History to c1800", (ii) Ensemble and Orchestral Use.
The horn officially did not officially enter the Imperial court orchestra in Vienna until 1712, but from there it quickly migrated to the Neapolitan viceroyalty, dominated at that time by the Austrians. In the works of Alessandro Scarlatti
Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti (2 May 1660 – 22 October 1725) was an Italian Baroque composer, known especially for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the most important representative of the Neapolitan school of opera.
...
and Antonio Lotti
Antonio Lotti (5 January 1667 – 5 January 1740) was an Italian composer of the Baroque era.
Biography
Lotti was born in Venice, although his father Matteo was '' Kapellmeister'' at Hanover at the time. Oral tradition says that in 1682, Lotti ...
, the horn was quickly adopted into Neapolitan opera, the most fashionable in Europe at the time. It was in the hands of these Italian composers that the horn took on its characteristic "harmonic" orchestral role. One of the first Neapolitan works to use horns was Scarlatti's serenata ''Il genio austriaco: Il Sole, Flora, Zefiro, Partenope e Sebeto'', performed 28 August 1713 as part of the celebrations for the birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christina. On 19 November of the same year, Lotti's opera ''Porsenna'' was performed at the Teatro S Bartolomeo in a version "adapted and directed" by Scarlatti, and in almost all of his own subsequent operas Scarlatti used horns in the orchestra. The usual name for the horn in these Neapolitan scores was ''tromba da caccia'', an Italianization of the French ''trompe de chasse''. It is thought that the ''trombon da caccia'' called for by Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
in his opera ''Orlando finto pazzo
''Orlando finto pazzo'' (; ''Orlando, the Fake Madman'') is an opera (''dramma per musica'') in three acts composed by Antonio Vivaldi to a libretto by Grazio Braccioli. The plot is based on an episode in Matteo Boiardo's unfinished epic poem ...
'' (1714), and his Concerto in F for violin, two ''trombon da caccia'', two oboes, and bassoon, RV574, was also a hooped horn.
Solo repertory
In the eighteenth century some outstanding concertos were written for solo horn and orchestra by Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hilde ...
, Christoph Förster
Christoph Förster (30 November 1693 – 6 December 1745) was a German composer of the baroque period.
Life
Christoph Förster (spelled Johann Christoph Friedrich in his death register) was born in Bibra, Thuringia as the son of council tre ...
, Michael
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
and Joseph Haydn, Leopold
Leopold may refer to:
People
* Leopold (given name)
* Leopold (surname)
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
* Leopold (''The Simpsons''), Superintendent Chalmers' assistant on ''The Simpsons''
* Leopold Bloom, the protagonist o ...
and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
, and Carl Stamitz
Carl Philipp Stamitz ( cs, Karel Stamic; baptized 8 May 17459 November 1801) was a German composer of partial Czech ancestry. He was the most prominent representative of the second generation of the Mannheim School.
He was the eldest son of Jo ...
. Concerti grossi The concerto grosso (; Italian language, Italian for ''big concert(o)'', plural ''concerti grossi'' ) is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the ''#Concertino, concertino'') and full orc ...
include concertos for two horns by Vivaldi and Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto. At the end of the century Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
composed a Sonata for Horn and Piano in F major, Op. 17, for the Bohemian virtuoso Giovanni Punto
Jan Václav Stich, better known as Giovanni Punto (28 September 1746 in Žehušice, Bohemia – 16 February 1803 in Prague, Bohemia) was a Czech horn player and a pioneer of the hand-stopping technique which allows natural horns to play a greater ...
(Jan Václav Stich), a master of hand-horn technique.
In the early nineteenth century, Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 17865 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and critic who was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic era. Best known for his opera ...
, in addition to giving the horn a prominent orchestral place in the overtures to the operas ''Oberon
Oberon () is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fair ...
'' and ''Der Freischütz
' ( J. 277, Op. 77 ''The Marksman'' or ''The Freeshooter'') is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 181 ...
'', composed a spectacularly difficult Concertino in E Minor which, amongst other things, includes an early use of multiphonics
A multiphonic is an extended technique on a monophonic musical instrument (one that generally produces only one note at a time) in which several notes are produced at once. This includes wind, reed, and brass instruments, as well as the human voice ...
, produced by humming into the instrument while playing. Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards f ...
exploited the instrument's association with hunting in a piece called ''Rendez-vous de chasse'' for four ''corni da caccia'' and orchestra (1828).[Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti, "Horn", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by ]Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001): 5: "Repertory". All of these works were written for the natural horn.
The advent of the valved horn brought new possibilities, which were exploited by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
in two works written in 1849: the Adagio and Allegro for horn and piano Op. 70 and the ''Concertstück'' for four horns and orchestra. Other important works from this era are the concertos by Saverio Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptised 17 September 179517 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond ...
, Franz Strauss
Franz Joseph Strauss (26 February 1822 – 31 May 1905) was a German musician. He was a composer, a virtuoso horn player and accomplished performer on the guitar, clarinet and viola. He was principal horn player of the Bavarian Court Opera fo ...
, and the First Concerto (1882–83) by his son Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
. Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...
did not write a concerto as such, but did compose two Romances for horn (or cello) and orchestra, Op. 67 in E major (1866), and Op. 36 in F major (1874), and a ''Morceau de concert'' Op. 94 (1887) for horn and orchestra.
Chamber music
The horn is a standard member of the wind quintet
A wind quintet, also known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players (most commonly flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon).
Unlike the string quartet (of 4 string instruments) with its homogeneous blend of sound color, the in ...
and brass quintet
A brass quintet is a five-piece musical ensemble composed of brass instruments. The instrumentation for a brass quintet typically includes two trumpets or cornets, one French horn, one trombone or euphonium/baritone horn, and one tuba or bass t ...
, and often appears in other configurations. Notable works from the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries include two quintets by Mozart, one in E major for horn, violin, two violas, and cello (KV407/386c) and the other for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn (KV452). Beethoven also wrote a Quintet for piano and winds, Op. 16, as well as a Sextet for two horns and strings, Op. 81b, and a Septet in E major, Op. 20, for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. One of Schubert's last works is the Octet
Octet may refer to:
Music
* Octet (music), ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or composition written for such an ensemble
** String octet, a piece of music written for eight string instruments
*** Octet (Mendelssohn), 1825 compos ...
(D803), written in 1824, which adds a second violin to Beethoven's Septet scoring.
The combination of horn with violin and piano is called a horn trio Horn trio can mean a work written for three horns or horns as well as one for horn and two other instruments. In the latter category, an important genre is the trio for horn, violin and piano. Although there are a few earlier examples, the traditi ...
, and though Brahms's Horn Trio Horn trio can mean a work written for three horns or horns as well as one for horn and two other instruments. In the latter category, an important genre is the trio for horn, violin and piano. Although there are a few earlier examples, the traditi ...
was not the first example, it nevertheless was the first important work in the genre and inspired many later composers to write for the same grouping, notably Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer.
Biography
Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Char ...
(ca.1953), Don Banks
Donald Oscar Banks (25 October 19235 September 1980) was an Australian composer of concert, jazz, and commercial music.
Early life and education
Jazz was Banks' earliest and strongest musical influence. He learned the saxophone as a boy in Aust ...
(1962), and György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" ...
(1982).
References
External links
Wooden folk horns (''Polish folk musical instruments'')
Wooden folk horn (documentary)
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