Horn

General info:

The horn, also known as the French horn, is a brass instrument made of tubing more than 20 feet (6.1 m) long, wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player

History:

Medieval and Renaissance Horns

The origins of the modern French Horn can be traced back to medieval times, when the natural horns existed. As the name indicates, humans originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate them in metal. Early metal horns were less complex than modern horns, consisting of brass tubes with a slightly flared opening (the bell) wound around a few times. These early "hunting" horns were originally played to call hounds on a hunt. Players relied on their lips to change the pitch, and could only play the notes on the harmonic series.

When the early horns were first played as a musical instrument, they were commonly pitched in B♭ alto, A, A♭, G, F, E, E♭, D, C, and B♭ basso. Since the only notes available were those on the harmonic series of one of those pitches, they had no ability to play in different keys. The remedy for this limitation was the use of crooks, i.e., sections of tubing of differing length that, when inserted, altered the length of the instrument, and thus its pitch. Horns players were grouped into two pairs, with the 1st and 3rd horn playing the high parts and the 2nd and 4th horn playing the low parts.

Baroque Horns

Horn players began to insert the right hand into the bell to change the length of the instrument, adjusting the tuning up to the distance between two adjacent harmonics depending on how much of the opening was covered. This technique, known as hand-stopping, is generally credited to Anton Joseph Hampel and was refined and carried to much of Europe by the influential Giovanni Punto. This allowed horn players to reach notes outside of the harmonic series. By the early classical period, the horn had become an instrument capable of much melodic playing.

Classical Horns

Around 1815 the use of pistons (later rotary) valves was introduced, initially to overcome problems associated with changing crooks during a performance. Valves' unreliability, musical taste, and players' distrust, among other reasons, slowed their adoption into mainstream. The use of valves, however, opened up a great deal more flexibility in playing in different keys; in effect, the horn became an entirely different instrument, fully chromatic for the first time. Valves were originally used primarily as a means to play in different keys without crooks, not for harmonic playing.

Range:

The horn in F has a range from B1 – F5.

Role:

A classical orchestra usually contained two horns. Typically, the 1st horn played a high part and the 2nd horn played a low part. Composers from Beethoven onwards commonly used four horns. Here, the 1st and 2nd horns played as a pair (1st horn being high, 2nd horn being low), and the 3rd and 4th horns played as another pair (3rd horn being high, 4th horn being low). Music written for the modern horn follows a similar pattern with 1st and 3rd horns being high and 2nd and 4th horns being low.

Foreign names:

Horn ----- German

Cor ----- French

Corno ----- Italian

Famous pieces: