Natural Horn
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The natural horn is a
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 ...
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
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 ...
by widening the bell and lengthening the tubes. It consists of a mouthpiece, long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. This instrument was used extensively until the emergence of the valved horn in the early 19th century.


Hand stopping technique

The natural horn has several gaps in its harmonic range. To play chromatically, in addition to crooking the instrument into the right key, two additional techniques are required: ''bending'' and ''
hand-stopping Hand-stopping is a technique by which a natural horn can be made to produce notes outside of its normal harmonic series. By inserting the hand, cupped, into the bell, the player can reduce the pitch of a note by a semitone or more. This, combin ...
''. Bending a note is achieved by modifying the
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 ...
to raise or lower the pitch fractionally, and compensates for the slightly out-of-pitch " wolf tones" which all brass instruments have. Hand-stopping is a technique whereby the player can modify the pitch of a note by up to a semitone (or sometimes slightly more) by inserting a cupped hand into the bell. Both techniques change the timbre as well as the pitch. It is commonly thought that hand technique emerged during the first half of the eighteenth century at the Dresden court with the horn player Anton Hampel. Domnich (1807) cited Hampel as the inventor of this technique and recounted the "invention" in which Hampel, trying to emulate oboist colleagues who used cotton plugs to "mute" their instruments, tried the same with his horn and was "surprised to find that the pitch of his instrument rose by a semitone. In a flash of inspiration he realised that by alternately inserting and withdrawing the cotton plug he could cover without a break every diatonic and chromatic scale." Pitch changes are made through a few techniques: * Modulating the lip tension as done with modern brass instruments. This allows for notes in the harmonic series to be played. * Changing the length of the instrument by switching the crooks. This is a rather slow process. Before the advent of the modern valved horn, many ideas were attempted to speed up the process of changing the key of the instrument. Crooks were in common use by 1740. * Changing the position of the hand in the bell; this is called
hand-stopping Hand-stopping is a technique by which a natural horn can be made to produce notes outside of its normal harmonic series. By inserting the hand, cupped, into the bell, the player can reduce the pitch of a note by a semitone or more. This, combin ...
. The effect is a pitch that lowers the harmonic, but dampens the sound.


Repertoire

The repertoire for horn includes many pieces that were originally written with the natural horn in mind. Until the development of the modern horn in the early to mid-19th century, Western music employed the natural horn and its natural brass brethren. Substantial contributors to the horn repertoire include Handel,
Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
,
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 (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
,
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 ...
,
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 ...
, Weber,
Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
and many others. The chromatic abilities of recently developed brass instruments, however, opened new possibilities for composers of the Romantic era, and fit with the artistic currents of the time. By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, almost all music was written for the modern valved horn. However, the natural horn still found its way into the works of some composers.
Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
did not care for the valved horn and wrote for natural horn.
Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
's ''
Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings The ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings'', Op. 31, is a song cycle written in 1943 by Benjamin Britten for tenor, solo horn and a string orchestra. Composed during the Second World War at the request of the horn player Dennis Brain, it is a ...
'', though written for the modern horn, makes notable use of the F harmonic series and has been recorded at least once on a natural horn.
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 ...
's ''
Hamburg Concerto ''Hamburg Concerto'' (') for solo horn and chamber orchestra with four obbligato natural horns is one of György Ligeti's last works, composed in 1998–99 and revised in 2003. The work was commissioned by the ZEIT-Foundation, expressing the sp ...
'' makes a great use of the natural horn and of natural sounds on the modern horn in the solo part and requires four natural horns in the orchestra.


Natural horn and the modern horn

Below lists natural horn keys with their corresponding fingering on the modern horn. If a piece of music says the key on the left you can press the key combination on the right on the modern double horn to get the correct tube length. This is useful for simulating natural horn when playing older compositions. * B alto – T0 * A – T2 * A – T1 * G – T12 * G/F – T23 * F – open * E – 2 * E – 1 * D – 12 * D – 23 * C – 13 * B basso – 123 (generally very sharp; pull tuning slide and/or valve slides out somewhat) * B basso – not possible on F horn, unless you pull all the valve slides and tuning slide out as far as they will go (without detaching) and then use the 123 fingering. Even then, the intonation may still be sharp, and a greater degree of hand in the horn bell can be needed.


See also

*
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 par ...
*
Natural trumpet A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series. History The natural trumpet was used as a military instrument to facilitate communication (e.g. break camp, retreat, etc.). Even before th ...


References


External links


The Cyber Horn Museum
* Ericson, John

* Seraphinoff, Richard
''Natural Horns''
{{Authority control Baroque instruments Orchestral instruments