The Art Of The Vienna Horn

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Cat No: 8557471

Release Date: 09 January 2004

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313247127

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: THE ART OF THE VIENNA HORN

Description
Chamber Works for HornBeethoven Schubert Schumann BrahmsA Short History of the HornWhen for the first time a primitive man beat with a stone ona tree-trunk to communicate with people at a distance, a musical instrument wascreated. Next came the horn, and as its name suggests, it was a long way awayfrom the modern copper and brass alloy. A bull's horn (as Wagner prescribes inThe Twilight of the Gods), a bone, a reed or a shell, put to the lips, givesout a note. That was the origin of all wind instruments. The strength of thestream of air and the varied placing and tension of the lips produced differentnotes. That is how the horn still works.The oldest surviving horns are spiral horns from Assyria,like those still in use today in Papua-New Guinea. The old Jewish shofar (fromthe horn of a ram) brought down the walls of Jericho. The Etruscans in BC 450made signal-horns from terra cotta that have the semicircular form of those nowin use. Since the bronze age men have made horns from metal, following themodel of mammoths' tusks. The oliphant (after the tusks of the elephant) cameto Europe from Byzantium and was a sign of nobility.Medieval cities found a use for the horn for nightwatchmen,huntsmen and postilions. When hunting-horns started to be adapted as signalhorns, the horn came into existence as a musical instrument. The parforcehunting-horn, invented by the court composer of Louis XIV, was still used byRossini.An important step towards the modern horn, the firstso-called natural horn, without valves and originally only playing the notes ofthe harmonic series, but further developed in structure, appeared in Germanyabout 1700. The tube was widened, the end strongly conical, the bell enlarged.Through change of the so-called crook immediately under the mouthpiece it could play different keys. Towardsthe end of the eighteenth century it became an indispensable orchestralinstrument that provided a background of sound. The Dresden orchestral playerAnton Hampel made the discovery of hand-stopping. By introducing the hand intothe bell of the instrument notes other than those of the harmonic series couldbe played. Mozart and Beethoven wrote for natural horns. On 12th April 1818 the Royal Prussian Patent Officeconfirmed the submission of the unknown provincial horn-players HeinrichStolzel and Friedrich Bl??hmel. They had invented valves and this opened tohorn-players all keys and the whole range of chromatic notes. In Beethoven'sNinth Symphony natural and valve horns are prescribed; both of the first arenatural horns, the fourth is a valve horn, and so the solo in the slowmovement, a G flat - D major scale that was not possible with the natural horn,is conventionally allotted to the fourth horn. I presume that Beethoven, whowas progressive in his attitude, wanted in this way to promote the valve hornand teach the traditionalists in the orchestra something. The F horn or Viennahorn, of which later there will be much to say, is a valve horn. As its na
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