Horn (musical instrument)

“ The tone is intensely mellow but incapable of any extensive [Pg 124] variation, but in spite of this lack of variety the tone itself is so wonderfully beautiful that the instrument is one of the most useful in the orchestra both in solo passages and to fill in the harmony. The horn (as well as the trumpet and trombone) differs from most of the wood-wind instruments in that its mouthpiece contains no reed, the lips of the player constituting the vibrating body as they are stretched across the mouthpiece and air is forced against them. The horn is used in bands as well as in orchestras. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Owing to the changes of pitch by crooks, it is not easy to define the compass of the French horn. Between C in the bass clef and G above the treble will represent its serviceable notes. It is better that the first horn should not descend below middle C, or the second rise above the higher E of the treble clef. Four are generally used in modern scores. The place of the horn is with the wood wind band. From Handel, every composer has written for it, and what is known as the small orchestra of string and wood wind bands combined is completed by this beautiful instrument. ”

“ Wind-Instruments of Brass THE HORN The brass choir is composed of horns, trumpets, and trombones, with the addition in most modern scores of a contra-bass tuba. Wagner has used also bass trumpets and tenor tubas to enrich the color of this part of his orchestra. The horn, or French horn, as it is often called, is the old hunting horn adapted to orchestral purposes. It is an extremely valuable instrument, because it has a most noble and expressive tone, which makes it very interesting as a solo voice, and equally because it blends admirably with either strings or wood, as well as with brass. ”

“ It blends admirably with all the other instruments of the wood-wind group, even its lowest tones being available in soft combinations without fear of cutting through the tonal mass.
The english horn, in reality, is a transposing instrument in F, though not so designated in the score. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thirdly, upon the valves, which, when pressed by the fingers, produce notes of lower and higher pitch.
The right hand of the player is always in the bell of his instrument to prevent harsh and loud sounds and to give the tone a smooth and veiled quality.
To play the horn bouché means to stop the horn with hand, or fist. To force its tone produces a loud, brassy and even wild effect. ”

“ It may be well to draw attention to the fact that hand-stopping was not possible so long as the tube of horn was folded in a circle wide enough to be worn round the body. The reduction of the diameter of the orchestral horn in order to allow the performer to hold the instrument in front of him, thus bringing the bell in front of the right arm in a convenient position for hand-stopping, must have preceded the discovery of hand-stopping. ”

“ COR ANGLAIS, or English Horn (Ger. englisches Horn or alt Hoboe; Ital. corno inglese) , a wood-wind double-reed instrument of the oboe family, of which it is the tenor. It is not a horn, but bears the same relation to the oboe as the basset horn does to the clarinet. ”

“ They are rapidly put together and easy of execution, without any great originality. Their brevity enables the instrument to preserve its true character as one unsuited for display of execution; in the last movement, which is the regulation rondo in 6-8 time, the original nature of the horn as a hunting instrument is made apparent, which at that CLARINET CONCERTO, 1791. [339] time, when hunting music was thought more of than at present, was no doubt found very entertaining. ”

“ The hunting horn finally adopted differs from the orchestral horn in consisting of an unbroken spiral of three turns, sufficiently large to be worn obliquely round the body, resting on one shoulder and passing under the opposite arm. The hands are thus left at liberty, and the mouthpiece can easily be brought to the lips by a single movement. ”

“ The mouthpiece of the horn differs substantially from that of the trumpet. [2] There is, strictly speaking, no cup, the inside of the mouthpiece being, like the bore of the instrument itself, in the form of a truncated cone or funnel. Like the other parts of this difficult and complex instrument, the proportions of the mouthpiece must bear a certain undefined relation to the length and diameter of the column of air. The choice of a suitable mouthpiece is in fact a test of skill ”

“ Schumann frequently used valve horns plus natural horns, and Berlioz preferred the vulgar cornet à pistons to the improved trumpet.
But the romantic period added many an instrument to the limited orchestra of Mozart and Beethoven. [Pg 341] Clarinets and trombones became the usual thing. The horns were increased to four, and the small flute or piccolo, the English horn, and the bass clarinet (or the double bassoon) , and the ophicleide became frequent. Various instruments, such as the ‘serpent,’ the harp, and all sorts of drums were freely introduced for special effects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each instrument in which such a mouthpiece is employed requires a slightly different form of it. The French horn is the most important brass instrument in modern music. It consists of a body of conical shape about seven feet long, without the crooks, ending in a large bell, which spreads out to a diameter of fifteen inches. The crooks are fitted between the body and the mouthpiece; they are a series of smaller interchangeable tubings, which extend in length as they descend in pitch, and set the instrument in different keys. The mouthpiece is a funnel shaped tube of metal, by preference silver ”

“ There is but a slight analogy between it and the cor de chasse of the Middle Ages, an instru-14-ment that possessed but few tones. The genuine French horn made its appearance in the first half of the seventeenth century, and the stages of its development may be regarded as centennial. In the eighteenth century was added the crook principle, in the nineteenth, the valve system. These improvements were attendant upon those made upon trumpets. Like the trumpet, the "natural" horn was conducive to purity of tone, the chromatic horn to greater practicability without material loss of purity. ”

“ There is ample room for the performer’s head and shoulders to pass through the circle: the length of the tube could not therefore have been much less than 16 ft. long, equivalent to the horn in C or B♭ basso. In the same book (pl. ccci.) is another horn, smaller, differing slightly in the disposition of the coils and held like the modern horn in front.
These horns were not used for hunting but for war in conjunction with the draw-trumpet. ”

“ The first oboe of the same orchestra has a peculiar tone, which robs his instrument of its individuality and makes it resemble a clarinet. A well-known solo horn player produces from his instrument a tone which sounds more like that of a valve trombone or a euphonium than that of a French horn. Such individual faults injure the general effect of an orchestra’s playing, though they are not strictly to be classed under the head of qualities of orchestral performance. ”

“ Valves and slides, being instantaneous in operation, give to the instrument a chromatic compass, whereas crooks merely enable the performer to play in many keys upon one instrument instead of requiring a different instrument for each key. The slide is the oldest of these devices, and probably suggested the crook as a substitute on instruments of conical bore such as the horn. ”

“ That he had his own delicate feeling for238 color and sensuous effect is shown in many pages of the chamber music, especially in those works for unusual combinations, e.g., the Clarinet Quintet, and the Trio for Violin, Horn and Pianoforte. No one in modern times has used more eloquently that romantic instrument, the horn. See, for example, the Coda to the first movement of the D major Symphony and the slow movement of the Third Symphony. ”

“ Although the harmonic series remains the same for all the crooks, the actual sounds produced by overblowing are lower, the tube being longer, and they now belong to the key of the crook. The principle of the crook was known early in the 17th century; it had been applied to the trumpet, trombone and Jägertrummet [1] before being adapted to the horn. Crooks are merely transposing agents; they are powerless to fill up the gaps in the scale of the horn in order to make it a chromatic or even a diatonic instrument, for they require time for adjustment. ”

“ It is much easier to learn than the horn, and presents greater facility in rapid melodic passages. The least objectionable way of introducing it into the reed band is to associate a pair of these instruments with two French horns, reserving characteristic holding notes for the latter. In the brass band, where variety of timbre is less attainable, it answers its purpose well, and can better be played on horseback, from its upright bell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In orchestral music the part for first horns naturally calls for the use of the higher harmonics, which are more easily obtained by means of a somewhat smaller and shallower mouthpiece3 than that used upon the second horn, which is called upon to dwell more on the lower harmonics. ”

“ The spinning-wheel begins Andante in muted strings alternating with flutes and gradually hurries into a lively motion. Here the horn accents the spinning, while another thread (of higher wood) runs through the graceful woof. A chain of alluring harmonies preludes the ensnaring song, mainly of woodwind above the humming strings, with soft dotting of the harmony by the horns. The violins, to be sure, often enforce the melody.
In the second verse, with fuller chorus, the harp adds its touches to the harmony of the horns, with lightest tap of tonal drum. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1812 Dikhuth,82 horn-player in the orchestra of the grand-duke of Baden at Mannheim, constructed a horn in which a slide on the principle of that of the trombone was intended to replace hand-stopping and to lower the pitch at will a semitone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As an example of perfect writing for a solo horn nothing in symphonic music is better than the opening of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s fifth symphony.
The methods of employing horns are so numerous that it is not practicable to recount all of them. It may be said, however, that in small scores, which call for wood-wind, two horns and strings, these instruments are often used to form chords with either the wind or the strings. Two horns and two bassoons make very effective harmony ”