INSTRUMENTS IN THE ORCHESTRA:

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 429, 12 September 1947, Page 20

INSTRUMENTS IN THE ORCHESTRA:

(10) The French Horn

HE tenth of a series of short articles on the instruments of the National Orchestra, written to help interested listeners towards a more informed appreciation of orchestral music and a better understanding of the resources at the command of the conductor. J

ERHAPS the noblest instrument.of the symphony orchestra is the French Horn. When the horn starts to play, the attention of the listener is at once attracted to it and there is no more delightful music than that produced by four horns: playing together in harmony. The quality of its voice varies from the

ethereal to that other extreme which may best be described by the old saying, "God in his wrath hath created the horn." As its name implies, the horn was originally the actual horn of an animal and even when artificially manufactured it retained this form for a long time. In medieval times it was much used in a manner similar to the bugle of to-day. In Ripon in England, for instance, the town horn is still blown at 9 o’clock every night before the town cross and the mayor’s door, by the town hornblower, Efforts to improve the horn by increasing its naturally limited range were made during the 18th Century, during which period it was admitted to the orchestra as a regular member, though it is said to have been used by Lulli in his Princess d’Elide, in the 16th Century. Two horns were standard until

the time of Beethoven, who added another and then later brought the strength of the family up to four, In Tannhauser Wagner used 16 horns, and he used eight regularly in most of his__ later works. The modern horn is a tube over 11 feet in length, having a conical bore of extreme narrowness at one end and widening at the other into a wide bell. For convenience the tube is coiled into a

circle and it has a 1tun-nel-shaped mouthpiece. The principle of playing is the same as that of the other brass instruments, the player’s lips acting as the reed, and valves being used to modify the effective length of the tube. The horn is the most difficult of all the instruments of the orchestra to play and even the most experienced players sometimes fail to obtain the exact note at which they are aiming. The instrument can be muted by the player inserting his left hand into the ‘bell, but the pear-shaped ‘type of mute used for the trumpet can be employed instead. The hand horn-that is, the earlier type of horn without valves-is seldom used to-day. Although the repertory of the horn as a solo instrument is not large it has some notable parts, such as Mozart’s four horn concertos, Brahms’s trio for horn, violin, and _ pianoforte (usually heid to be the,

most outstanding piece of chamber music for the horn), Haydn’s horn concertos, and also works by Beethoven, Weber, Schumann, Rheinberger and others. The National Orchestra has four horns.