English horn

“ They are portrayed by an English horn and an oboe, the result being one of the great instrumental dialogues that are sometimes found in-works of the tone masters. An effective touch is the introduction of a thunder-storm, after which the English horn begins a plaintive note of inquiry, but meets with no reply. ”

“ The word “horn” when used by modern English musicians always refers to the French horn.
Modern horns may be divided into three classes: (1) the short horns with wide bore, such as the bugles (q.v.) and the post-horn. (2) The saxhorns (q.v.) , a family of hybrid instruments designed by Adolphe Sax, and resulting from the adaptation of valves and of a cup-shaped mouthpiece to instruments of the calibre of the bugle. The Flügelhorn family is the German equivalent of the saxhorns. The natural scale of instruments of this class comprises the harmonics from the second to the eighth only. ”

“ Horns, in English folk-lore, appear to belong rather to elves than to fairies [81] —the elves that haunt hills, and are known all over Europe; dwarfs, trolls, kobolds, pixies, and so forth. Teutonic witches are called horn-blowers. Again, the fairy-train or fairy-hunt is supposed to carry horns; we have seen it already in Sir Orfeo, [82] and in Thomas of Erceldoune, [83] the fairy-queen bears a horn about her neck.
But this Oberon of Huon of Bordeaux is mortal, and is not pictured as being abnormal in stature, any more than Mider. ”

“ In the second group (the wood-wind) are found the flute, piccolo, oboe, bassoon, English horn, double-bassoon, [Pg 116] clarinet, and bass clarinet. The English horn, double-bassoon, bass clarinet, and piccolo are not called for in the older compositions, hence are not always present in the orchestra.
10. In the third group (the brass choir) are found the French horn, (usually referred to as the horn) , trumpet (sometimes replaced by the cornet) trombone, and tuba.
11. The fourth group (percussion) consists of kettle drums, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, bells, etc. ”

“ The Flügel horn now used in the English and German armies is a B♭ cornet with pistons and a horn mouthpiece. The pistons have superseded a clumsy kind of keys, from which it used to be called Klappenhorn. ”

“ The idea of an animal bearing a single horn arose probably from the horn of the narwhal, which has diagonal striations upon it resembling those generally shown on the horn of a unicorn, and certainly does not look like the tooth of a fish. ”

“ For the most dangerous of your interpreters is the conductor. Don’t forget this.”
The overture is scored for two flutes (and piccolo) , two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, kettledrums, two side drums, cymbals, triangle, and strings. ”

“ Consequently, the Wardens were expressly authorized the same year by the Mayor and Aldermen to punish any who should reveal the secret of the Craft to any stranger.
Exportation of Horns. So valuable a trade, however, could not remain long unknown to the Continental nations, who were, in other respects, far in advance of England, and consequently the demand for English horns on the Continent became so great that, in spite of the Act forbidding the export of horns, the members of the Gild seem to have done a considerable trade in exporting horns, on the excuse that they were refuse horns. ”

“ Pretty little lesson-toys, these gilded horns must have proved, but not so fine as the hornbooks of silver and ivory used by young [123] misses of quality in England. Scores of pictures by seventeenth-century artists—on canvas and glass—show demure little maids and masters with hanging hornbooks. Even the pictures of the Holy Family [124] show the infant Christ, hornbook in hand, tenderly taught by the Virgin Mother.
The hornbook was called by other names, horn-gig, horn-bat, battledore-book, absey-book, etc.; and in Dutch it was the a-b-boordje. ”

“ Militant England (Prince Arthur) is assisted by the clergy (Squire) with his horn (Bible) and is guided by Truth and Common Sense (Dwarf) .
23. horne of bugle small, the English Bible. Spenser here imitates the description of the magic horn of Logistilla in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, xv, 15, 53. Such horns are frequently mentioned in romance, e.g., Chanson de Roland, Morte d' Arthur, Hawes' Pastime, Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Huon of Bordeaux, Romance of Sir Otarel, Cervantes' Don Quixote, etc. ”

“ The hunting- and post-horns were favourite emblems on medieval coats of arms, more especially in Germany33 and Bohemia.
It is necessary at this point to draw attention to the fact that the French horn is a hybrid having affinities with both trumpet and primitive animal horn, or with buccina and cornu, and that both types, although frequently misnamed and confused by medieval writers and miniaturists, subsisted side by side, evolving independently until they merged in the so-called French horn. ”

“ The origin of the horn must be sought in remote prehistoric times, when, by breaking off the tip of a short animal horn, one or at best two notes, powerful, rough, unsteady, only barely approximating to definite musical sounds, were obtained. This was undoubtedly the archetype of the History. modern families of brass wind instruments, and from it evolved the trumpet, the bugle and the tuba no less than the horn. ”

“ The common characteristics which link together these widely different modern families of instruments are: (1) the more or less pronounced conical bore, and (2) the property possessed in a greater or lesser degree of producing the natural sounds by what has been termed overblowing the harmonic overtones. If we follow the evolution of the animal horn throughout the centuries, the ultimate development leads us not to the French horn but to the bugle and tuba. ”

“ Among household curios are drinking horns elaborately etched, and frequently turned in a lathe. They were popular in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the turned patterns then so common were copied by the silversmiths, who made silver tankards and drinking cups on the same models. The cornucopia or horn of abundance figures frequently in sculpture, paintings, and works of art. The horn is one of the early instruments of music (see Chapter XV) , and has long been associated with sports. ”

“ Above this snag, the horns have a shiny surface, are rounded, and taper gradually to a sharp tip, bent into a hook. The horns vary greatly in the males. I have sometimes shot them with the prong hardly developed, sometimes springing from the horn near the tip, and in others growing close to the head, where it is always uneven and warty. The female is devoid of horns, or only has them in a rudimentary condition. ”

“ At the beginning of the Christian era it had become fashionable to wear these, and how they were enlarged and made not only badges of sanctity but marks of worldly honor, we may read in the New Testament.
The horn has been an important feature of Christian symbolism, as of pagan, and we constantly see the ram's horn, which was the successor of the bull's horn, made such from economical reasons, all over the ruins of ancient Rome. The married women of Lebanon wear silver horns upon their heads to distinguish them from the single women. ”

“ The horns are lagest at their base, and occupy the crown of the head almost entirely. they are compressed, bent backwards and lunated; the surface swelling into wavy rings which incircleing the horn continue to succeed each other from the base to the extremity and becoming less elivated and more distant as they recede from the head. ”

“ The Horn and Cornett.
The horn takes its name from the cow’s horn, out of which the instrument was made. The resemblance includes the tapering bore of this instrument, and also the fact that it is curved. [90] In the metal p. 91instruments, made in imitation of the natural horn, we find a curvature of about a semi-circle, as in the seventeenth century hunting horn (Galpin, p. 188) . While in the horn of the early seventeenth century shown on the same plate, the tube is curved into many circular coils. ”

“ The touching-pieces (tousches) or proofs (espreuves) employed for the purpose, and considered especially efficacious against poison, were toadstones, glossopetræ, serpentine, jasper, agate and particularly the unicorn's horn. What was foisted upon the credulous public as the horn of the fabled animal was in reality the horn or tusk of a fish—the narwhal or sea-unicorn of the northern seas. Being an object of very great value, the horn was only occasionally kept entire, like the one preserved to this day at New College, Oxford. ”

“ Hark, hark!—What sound on the wind is borne?
'Tis the conquering voice of the hunter's horn.
The horn,—the horn!
The merry bold voice of the hunter's horn!
Sound, sound the horn! To the hunter good
What's the gully deep, or the roaring flood?
Right over he bounds, as the wild stag bounds,
At the heels of his swift, sure, silent hounds.
O what delight can a mortal lack
When he once is firm on his horse's back,
With his stirrups short and his snaffle strong,
And the blast of the horn for his morning song!
[Pg 225] Hark, hark! Now home! ”

“ It is believed by many that, when the animal is at rest, the horns are soft and pliable, but that, when on the move, they at once become hard and solid. Moreover, that it can, at will, turn the posterior horn, the other horn meanwhile remaining firm and erect ”

“ The horn of the fabulous unicorn, in reality none other than that of the rhinoceros, is much valued as an amulet, and in west Africa, where the horns of wild animals are greatly esteemed as fiend-scarers, a large horn filled with mud and having three small horns attached to its lower end is used as a safeguard to prevent slaves from running away. ”

“ The horn is probably the most difficult of all the wind instruments, and that it is the most treacherous is evidenced by the slips occasionably made by even the finest performers. The F horn is a transposing instrument. ”

“ His horns grow and form their prongs, when growing we call them in their velvet; feel of them and they are soft, through the summer and fall, and they keep growing until they form a perfect horn, hard as a bone. By the prongs we are able to tell the number of years old they are.
In the fall of the year when an old buck has his horns fully grown to see him running in his native forest is a beautiful sight. ”

“ The hump between the shoulders, and the long dew-lap hanging half-way to the ground, with the peculiar curve of the horns, make them look very unlike our American cattle. When well kept and trained, they are beautiful creatures, quick, and perfectly obedient to the driver, who guides them by a small cord attached to one horn of each animal. ”

“ A great many useful articles are made from the solid or tip portion of horns, a great many useful and very beautiful articles, some of which are turned by the lathe, while others are cut. Whip-handles, stick and umbrella handles, and handles for knives and small tools, may be made from horn and afterwards scraped and polished. Goats’ and sheep’s horns are clearer and more transparent than those of the ox. ”

“ In most cases only the horn, with a small piece of skull and skin, is sold. Sometimes, instead of the skin from the part where the horn is made, a piece of skin is taken from the snout, where the long black hairs are. The horn then appears surrounded by long black bushy hairs. The Kuruvikkārans explain that, when they see a jackal with such long hairs on the top of its head, they know that it possesses a horn. A horn-vendor, whom I interviewed, assured me that the possessor of a horn is a small jackal, which comes out of its hiding place on full-moon nights to drink the dew. ”

“ From an ethnological point of view, the legend, or more properly myth, of “The Horn Worshipers” is the most interesting in this collection of legends. None of the scholars at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Society held in New York, December, 1923, knew any parallel for it among the aborigines of America.
However, horns have been significant among many primitive peoples. Many of the Plains Indians of America, notably the Sioux, wore buffalo horns, and if I mistake not the totem of one tribe was a head of buffalo horns. ”

“ Yes, Paul; all kinds of horns are used, though some are much tougher and better than others. The 57 cattle raised in the Eastern, Middle and Western States furnish the best horns, and there is the curious difference that the horns of six cows are worth no more than those of a single ox. Many millions of horn combs are made every year in Massachusetts ”

“ Those accustomed to deal with instruments having fixed notes, such as the piano and harp, hardly realize the extreme difficulties which confront both maker and performer in intricate wind instruments such as the horn, on which no sounds can be produced without conscious adjustment of lips and breath, and but few without the additional use of some such contrivance as slide, crook, piston or of the hand in the bell, in the case of the natural or hand horn. ”

“ I sawed part way through the horn, then struck something soft and glittering. Think of it! That horn was a brown shell, a real horn; inside, it was solid virgin gold—and the horn was upon a rhinoceros!
Well, I investigated. I found that this horn-shell filled with gold had been set on a peg of the real horn, and cunningly pegged in place with ivory pegs. Thus it was evident that the animal had been a tame beast somewhere up-country. ”

“ He that hath horns thus let him learn to shed.
1663. Killigrew, The Parson’s Wedding, iv., 1 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 473) . I hope to exalt the Parson’s horn here. Ibid., (p. 477) . Only to fright the poor cuckholds and make the fools visit their horns. Ibid., v., 4 (p. 519) . Methinks my horns ache more than my corns. Ibid. ib. (p. 520) . I have seen a cuckold of your complexion: if he had lent as much hoof as horn, you might have hunted the beast by the slot.
1664. Butler, Hudibras, II., ii. For when men by their wives are cowed, Their horns of course are understood. ”