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A Brief History of the (French) Horn
The
modern orchestral brass French horn was an invention based on early
hunting horns. Hunting horns were first used as musical instruments
during 16th
century operas. During the 17th century, modifications to the bell end
(larger and flared bells) of the horn were made and the cor de chasse, or French Horn as the English called
it,
was born.
In Europe, horns gained popularity in the trendy sport of hunting. As this aristocratic sport spread, horn-makers experimented with different shapes and sizes to increase the range of notes possible. In 1636, French musical scholar Marin Mersenne wrote of four different kinds of horns in his Harmonie Universelle: Le grand cor (the big horn), the cor à plusiers tours, (the horn of several turns), le cor qui n'a qu'un seul tour (the horn which has only one turn), and le huchet (the horn with which one calls from afar). Horns such as the cor de chasse and trompe de chasse fall into this latter category. Beginning with the cor de chasse, the horn began its evolution into a refined concert hall instrument. From early beginnings in stage settings depicting the hunt, baroque composers began writing more complex and artistic music for this horn. Yet, the corno da caccia (Italian for hunting horn), was still a single, fixed length of tubing and its musical potential was limited to the natural harmonic series. Hunting music and cor de chasse ensembles played on these. There's a big repertoire for them. Bach used them extensively. Also, similar instruments were involved in the Brandenburg Concerto #1, and other repertoire for baroque horn (pre-hand horn technique). These horns were divided into two categories - those played by horn players and those played by trumpet players, although historically some musicians were proficient on both. The cor de chasse, or corno da caccia, was traditionally played by trumpet players, as it often is played using a trumpet mouthpiece, as is the post horn, or furst pless horn. The first horns were monotone instruments. The most useful range for melodic writing was in the upper harmonics (the "clarino" range) where the natural harmonics are close together. However, it was still necessary however to switch horns if a composer wanted the hornist to change keys. The impracticality of this soon led to the invention of the crook. In 1753, a German musician called Hampel invented the means of applying movable slides (crooks) of various length that changed the key of the horn. The crook is simply a section of coiled tubing that, when inserted into the horn changes the overall length of the instrument and in turn, the pitch (the longer the tube, the lower the pitch). This still allows the same entire harmonic series, but now, in a different key. Instead of carrying many instruments in different keys, horn players would only have to carry one horn with a set of crooks of varying lengths. Hand horn technique It wasn't just the instrument that was evolving. The players were getting more clever as well. In the court of Dresden, Anton Hampel (1711-1771) the Bohemian virtuoso hornist is generally credited with developing and teaching the technique that had been known by some hornists as early as the 1720s. He noted that by manipulating the right hand inside the bell of the horn, he could play tones other than the natural harmonics, thus filling in the gaps between the notes of the harmonic series. Coupled with the use of crooks, this new "hand horn" technique opened up exciting new possibilities for musical expression, and composers of the Classical Period eagerly embraced it. Listen to a Hand Horn Solo The Cor Solo and the Waldhorn were among the first instruments designed for hand horn technique. The Cor Solo was still somewhat limited in its range of keys though, it has attachments for only G, F, E, Eb and D transpositions. The Waldhorn had a similar system - a master crook producing the highest key needed, and optional successive crooks, each adding more tubing, to produce harmonics for lower keys. It wasn't until Anton Hampel encouraged a Dresden instrument maker, Johann Werner, to construct a horn with detachable crooks for BOTH the mouthpipe and the middle of the horn that a full range of transpositions was possible on one instrument. The Orchestra horn, as it was called, was honed and perfected between 1750 and 1755. With the Orchestra horn all transpositions are possible, from Bb basso to Bb alto. And utilizing hand horn technique, it could now play a full chromatic scale in any key. The horn was no longer a "special effect," but was firmly established as a refined musical instrument, and had become a regular member of the symphony orchestra Although the Orchestral horn was a marked improvement in horn technology, it still had some significant drawbacks. To change keys, the player still had to stop playing and change crooks. And it was cumbersome to carry around all of the necessary crooks. To accommodate these concerns many ideas came about and by 1815 several different Omnitonic horn designs were being manufactured. The basic idea was that via a mechanism of some type, a player could quickly choose from a built-in collection of crooks, while still utilizing hand horn technique to play in any given key. Intended as a solution to the problem of quick crook changes, the Omnitonic horn proved to be both cumbersome and heavy. It was also short-lived. It is debatable if it is possible to trace the invention of the modern French Horn to one person. However, two inventors are named as the first to invent a valve for the horn. According to the Historic Brass Society, "Heinrich Stoelzel (1777-1844), a member of the band of the Prince of Pless, invented a valve which he applied to the horn in July of 1814 (considered the first French Horn)" and "Friedrich Blühmel (fl. 1808-before 1845), a miner who played trumpet and horn in a band in Waldenburg, is also associated with the invention of the valve." In 1815, in the Leipzig periodical Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, Gottlob Benedict Bierey wrote: "Heinrich Stölzel, the chamber musician from Pless in Upper Silesia, in order to perfect the Waldhorn, has succeeded in attaching a simple mechanism to the instrument, thanks to which he has obtained all the notes of the chromatic scale in a range of almost three octaves, with a good, strong and pure tone. All the artificial notes - which, as is well known, were previously produced by stopping the bell with the right hand - are identical in sound to the natural notes and thus preserve the character of the Waldhorn. Any Waldhorn player will, with practice, be able to play on it. So that his invention may become more widely known and used, Herr Stölzel has laid his invention at the feet of His Majesty the King of Prussia and now awaits a favorable outcome." In 1816, Heinrich Stölzel and a wind playing colleague, Friedrich Blümel, were granted a Prussian patent for the valve mechanism. A later valve design of Stölzel's, a long stroke piston (known as the Stölzel valve), inspired other instrument makers. François Perinet developed a piston valve from Stölzel's model in 1839 that is the direct predecessor to the modern day piston valve. Stölzel's early piston valve horns also evolved into the horn that is still used by players in the Vienna Philharmonic today. The piston valve, which moves up and down, soon inspired another development in horn technology. About 1832, the rotary valve was invented by Joseph Riedl in Vienna. By the mid-1800s the valveless Waldhorn with a set of crooks was being far surpassed by a single F horn with three valves and no extra crooks. The valve could instantly change the length (and therefore the pitch) of the instrument by simply pushing down one or a combination of keys and activating the valve mechanisms. At first, piston valves were more common, but by the end of the 19th century, the rotary valve had gained popularity over the piston. Modern players still use hand-stopping to affect intonation and colour. According to A Brief History of Horn Evolution, "Double French horns were invented by both Edmund Gumpert and Fritz Kruspe in the late 1800s. German Fritz Kruspe, who has been credited most often as being the inventor of the modern double French horn, combined the pitches of the horn in F with the horn in B Flat in 1900." For the double horn, he crafted an instrument having a fourth valve that routed the air through shorter tubing that changed the entire pitch of the horn from F to Bb. Today, the double horn is the most commonly used horn worldwide. The first double horns were based on a system of adding tubing which compensated for the different lengths between the F and the B-Flat horns. Today we call them "compensating" double horns to distinguish them from full double horns, which came about a short time later. The full double is by far more popular today, but compensating horns are still used by some hornists. Compensating horns are more difficult for some players to play in tune, but others prefer them because of their lighter weight - a result of the fact that there is much less tubing in the compensating horn than in a full double. In most compensating horns, when the thumb valve is pressed, it directs the air through a length of tubing that produces the B-flat harmonic series, i.e. it is a B-flat horn. Each of the three valves, when pressed, then direct the air through additional tubing to lower the pitch by the correct amount, e.g. the first valve lowers it one step, second lowers it one-half step, and third lowers it one and a half steps. The three valve slides are exactly the correct length to lower the B-flat horn the proper interval. When playing on the F horn side of a compensating horn, the air still goes through the B-flat horn tubing as before, but now it also goes through an additional length of tubing that makes it the correct length to produce the F harmonic series, i.e. now it is an F horn. Because the length of an F horn is longer than a B-flat horn, there is another set of three short slides (one on each valve) to "compensate" for the different length of the F horn. When using the three valves, the air travels through the existing B-flat horn valve slides and the additional short, "compensating" slides. A full double horn is two complete horns built into one instrument, both horns sharing the same leadpipe and the same bell. After the leadpipe, the instrument contains a short length of tubing for the B-flat horn, and a completely separate, and longer, length of tubing for the F horn. The thumb valve again determines if the air goes through the B-flat horn or the F horn, but unlike the compensating horn, it does not go through both sets of tubing at the same time. (note: On most doubles, the thumb valve up will be F horn, the thumb valve down will be B-flat horn. There are some players though, who have their instruments set up so that this is reversed - thumb up is B-flat, thumb down is F.) On the full double there are also two complete sets of slides for the three valves - one set for the B-flat horn, and another set for the F horn. When the thumb valve sends air into the B-flat horn, the three valves will send air only into the slides that are the correct length for the B-flat horn. When the thumb valve sends air into the F horn, the three valves will send air only into the slides for the F horn. So instead of adding a little bit of extra tubing to the existing B-flat horn slides, the F slides are completely separate from, longer than, and never used at the same time as the B-flat horn slides. Acknowledgements: inventors.about .com The Cyberhorn Museum on hornplanet.com |
