The Real Horn - a new
enlightenment?
Arthur Butterworth
Musical acquaintances
whom I have known over the past seventy
years or so - for I began my brass-playing
life in the early 1930s - have more
or less with one mind always accepted
that brass playing means playing on
modern instruments equipped with valves.
I say this in relation to playing whether
in band or orchestra, but especially
in bands and I except the trombone although
even that is now so often assisted by
at least one valve. Intonation ought
thus never to be an embarrassment no
matter what situation one is in.
The earliest recollection
I have of an "old" instrument
came about after a band practice in
the winter of 1933, when as a boy, a
friend of mine came to shelter in our
house from the cold, while he waited
for the bus home. I was a bit curious
about the appearance of his peculiar-looking
cornet, but before I could really get
a look at it the bus came and he went
home. It was not until years later that
I realised it must have been not strictly
a cornet, but more precisely a cornopean;
if you are curious, look it up in a
good historical manual of brass instrument
design. What would the difference have
been? I suppose it was to do with the
design of the wind-ways which differ
from the configuration of the conventional
valve system we now have universally.
But at the time I thought no more about
it and just blandly went on - as most
brass band players still do - with the
instruments that seemed familiar; not
being at all curious about subtle differences
of timbre, or indeed of purpose.
Just after the Second
War - in the early part of 1946, I suppose,
on leave from the army - I chanced to
go to a concert in Manchester by the
Philadelphia Orchestra on its first
post-war European tour. The concert
was routine enough, and finished with
Mendelssohn’s "Italian Symphony"
which was very familiar indeed, perhaps
even too much so; it had become one
of those works heard a bit too often.
What intrigued me about this performance
however, was the peculiar sound of the
horns in that flamboyant, hunting horn
motif in the first movement. For some
unfathomable reason it sounded too tubby,
as if they were not so much playing
horns - as I knew them from hearing
British orchestras - but rather like
little wooden beer barrels being played
with a euphonium mouthpieces.
It puzzled me for a
long time afterwards, but eventually
it seemed to be revealed that, unlike
the traditional use of proper "french"
horns - narrow-bored and with piston
valves, such as the Halle and other
British orchestras had traditionally
used before the war, this snazzy (nowadays
we would call it "cool") American
orchestra used modern German double
horns. They emitted quite a different
- indeed, by comparison "tubby"
- sound. Of course, over the next few
years these instruments became universal
and we got accustomed to the sound of
a horn section being different from
what it once had been.
At one time it was
widely believed, and was supported by
tutor books and manuals on orchestration,
that the old "french" horn,
and even more so, the natural (simple)
horn without valves was redundant. Everyone
believed that the art of playing the
natural horn was virtually completely
redundant; all those "duff"
notes that had to be stopped were looked
upon derisively as not worth being seriously
considered in sophisticated modern performance.
In music after Wagner of course, this
was true: such later things were designed
specifically for the modern valve horn;
the natural horn could not have played
such chromatic music. So, along with
other subtle - perhaps even insidious
- changes in orchestral sound, such
as the larger-bored trumpets and trombones,
and parallel developments in wood wind,
we began to accept the present-day sound
of the horn as being the norm. Later
generations who never knew the sound
of the orchestra in the 1930s or earlier
could not possibly imagine what it was
then like, for truly reliable or representative
recordings of the orchestra of earlier
times hardly exist.
It was something of
merely a casual remark one day in the
late 1960s that a potential brass pupil
asked if I could search out for him
a "cheap" F-horn. His father
thought this might be a suitable orchestral
instrument for him. Within a week or
so I saw, quite by chance, in an antique
shop in York, what seemed to be the
very thing: an old, probably a bit decrepit,
"french" horn hanging in the
window. On impulse I went in and bought
it for a modest sum. I took it to school
and the boy took it home to show father.
He kept it about a fortnight and then,
bringing it back, asked if I minded
if he did not have it after all. "Father
thinks I should have a "proper"
modern instrument". So I took it
back, not having minded spending the
small sum it had cost me, and decided
I would keep it myself. So for almost
forty years it hung on my music room
wall, little more than a musical ornament,
which just now and then I would get
down from the wall and blow.
However, in the past
decade or rather more, there has been
an ever-growing interest in and new
awareness of the value of - musical,
as well as monetary - older instruments.
It was some time before I realised that
I possessed a rare Raoux horn, made
in Paris probably around 1860, and later
furnished with a detachable set of three
piston valves. In its original state
it is a natural or hand horn with an
F crook; but it also has two or three
other crooks - notably a Bb alto - to
which the ‘sauterelle’ or set of valves
(made by W. Brown of London in the early
1900s) can be attached if needed.. But
it is the quality of its natural horn
sound that is its real asset. It is
of course, in music characteristic of
the early classical period that it comes
into its own, but it has been interesting
to discover that the art of hand-stopping
is by no means lost. In recent years
it has been a fascinating revelation
to hear distinguished devotees of the
horn showing just what exquisite and
expressive sounds can be coaxed from
such natural instruments, playing the
early repertoire for which they were
designed . The modern double horn with
all its trappings, gadgets, extra keys
and what not may indeed be essential
in 20th century music, but
it is by no means really necessary -
or perhaps even appropriate - for earlier
music, although the modern complicated
instrument is probably ‘safer’ to guarantee
it being in tune and there is less risk
of unexpected musical hazards - split
notes and so on.
Most of all, it is
the sound of the natural horn that is
its real asset; a quality of elegance
and romance which is for the most part
seems not to be achieved by even the
most sophisticated of modern double-horns.
So, the trumpet now tends to languish
in its case since I have taken to playing
this fine antique instrument. Of course,
it is not only a matter of getting to
grips with the actual technique, it
is the mental exercise of transposition
that is such a good stimulus for the
brain; no mollycoddling with everything
cosily - and lazily - being provided
in just Bb or Eb. We play at sight in
all sorts of transpositions just for
the fun of it. Band musicians, like
their orchestral cousins, ought to develop
this kind of mental alertness; it is
good for overall musical ability.
Arthur Butterworth
October 2007
