While it always continued its vital contribution on the hunting field, outside this environment the horn gradually learned to wipe its boots carefully, and come into further prominence at Aprês Chasse gatherings in the wealthy landowners’ drawing rooms. It was only a matter of time before it ventured into the relatively small – compared to those today – concert halls of J S Bach’s day.
The Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt received his gift of six Concerti, for ‘Plusiéres Instruments’, in 1721. The 1st Concerto and some of the other concerti were partly rearranged from previous music, and all had fascinatingly different orchestration. The dedication from Bach to the Margrave (who had earlier expressed an interest in his music) being written in French is interesting to me. The fashion at that time was for everything French. The Gallant style was in evidence from the 1720s, and Frederick the Great‘s court, particularly, was guided by French thought and style. In Prussia, the king was influenced by both Rousseau, and Voltaire, who was a frequent visitor. We are used to the German description of the type of somewhat lighter, or ‘occasional’ music known as Tafelmusik, written around this time. However, The Great German composer Telemann, Godfather of CPE Bach and very popular when visiting France, wrote a large number of important works in 1733, under the general title Musique de Table.
C P E Bach was employed by Frederick the Great for decades from the 1730s. JS Bach, also visited the court in 1747 and tried out the collection of recently invented pianos that he found there. Frederick apparently refused to speak anything but French. The only exception he had was when conversing with his horses. And then only in the privacy of their stables.
We know that pitch varied enormously during Bach’s time. It ranged from as high as at least A=465 Herz (Chor-ton) in what we now call Germany, down to 392 Herz in France. And, of course, everything in between. It is thought that the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt’s musicians were French, and that therefore they played instruments that were pitched very low. If the first two concertos in F had been played at court, the resulting keys would have sounded considerably lower than today’s pitch. I have heard that the instruments used there have been unearthed, and the lowness of their pitch attested to. Is it not conceivable that Bach, who had to cope with organs of greatly differing pitches all over Germany knew precisely at what pitch the concerti would have been played.
In fact, he never got to find out, as it appears that the Margrave’s musicians were not up to the task anyway. The manuscripts were not discovered until halfway through the nineteenth century, in a library, and were only saved again, during a bombing raid on a train in which they were being transported to safe keeping during the Second World War. Their transporter managed to escape the train and run into a forest with his valuable parcel. There was similar trouble with a great amount of CPE Bach’s work, temporarily ‘liberated’ by the Russians after the bombing of Dresden.
Soon after this, although it did not apply to the coiled horns intended to be used in the Brandenburg performances as early as 1721, the manufacture of these instruments began to improve; their bells became larger, as did, slightly, the width of their bore. From the low harmonics being very low and the higher ones impossibly sharp on some narrow-bored and small-belled hunting instruments, the octaves (Gs and Cs) now became in tune with each other over the whole instrument, as well as the Es (5th and 10th) becoming more purely in tune. Thus they were able to fulfil Pythagoras’ notions of pure harmony and resonating octaves and fifths. Equally pleasing, for player and audience, was the emergence of a warmer and more flexible tone quality than before. The horn now offered the possibility of creating a much wider range of musical effects and moods. The advancement was becoming evident in the works written by those such as JS Bach’s friend Telemann – who was writing important music well into his eighties – and then Haydn. The middle, slower movements of suites and concertos (which had usually been up to now tacet for the horns) began to show the horn in a new, softer, ‘singing’ and generally more expressive, light.
Writing music for the horn in the middle movements, in other keys other than the tonic, became possible because of the gradual introduction of the right-hand modification of harmonics that the players took advantage of. And occasionally, I suppose, by a change of crook length. Hampel always gets the credit for the idea of creating, effectively, a chromatic scale by using the right hand, but I cannot help feeling that he cannot have been the first person to experiment with the right hand, when trying to improve the intonation of the more wayward odd-numbered harmonics.
By the time that we think of as being the end of the Industrial Revolution, in about 1860, the various designs of valve had already been around for about four decades. The addition of two, then three – and counting – valves had a profound effect on the way the horn was played. And it did also on its price, no doubt. It was as innovative as the invention of the petrol engine in 1876, which helped to move people around more quickly and in an ever more harmful – environmentally – fashion. Some would compare the valve’s importance to that of the introduction of Equal Temperament. ET had long been favoured by lutenists, but had started to be a necessary idea generated by the invention of the keyboard. Composers like Lassus, Gesualdo and Monteverdi had used compromise to make their wonderful music easy on the ear, and Bach knew how to use the keyboard to advantage, using different Temperaments (i.e. ways of tuning so that no key sounded particularly discordant).
Nonetheless, ET’s general acceptance (promoted vociferously by Rameau) gradually became universal, and by the late 18th and 19th Century had pushed aside all the traditional ideals of pure harmony that had been laid down and adhered to 2000 years before. Never let it be said that the valve was as harmful to society as the Chelsea Tractor, or the Steinway Grand/Equal Temperament. Both were equally inevitable. The valve was environmentally friendly and the horn could still be played in tune after the invention of the valve. It was a useful advance. The valves earned me a living, after all, bless ‘em. But I admit that I still don’t drive a car or play the piano. The problem learning both was partly to do with the pedals.
More seriously though, players were completely accustomed, over the previous 200 years before the valve’s invention, to the need for a completely smooth and accurate transition from one harmonic to another, whether it was to be tongued or slurred, or whether or not hand-modified pitches were involved. This is what set them apart as true masters of the instrument. Now they could use the same skill in going from a note played on one fingering to another of a different fingering. All notes are harmonics of one key or another. All they needed to do was to synchronise the newly necessary movement of their fingers with the practised movement of their lip, and ‘sing’ through the instrument.
As I’ve said before, the continued excellence of the horn playing tradition in France makes one appreciate the benefit of the slow transition from natural horn technique to valve horn technique that was so carefully nurtured by the teachers at the Paris Conservatoire in the 85 years from the invention of the valve to the first performance of Villanelle in 1906.
Giovanni Punto, on the natural horn, was a master of sensitivity and style. In other words, communication. Of one early performance of the Beethoven Sonata in the early 1800s, the critic wrote, ’Who is the Beethover (sic)? Herr Punto is very well known. In his playing only the words were missing’. There’s the human voice again. It makes one wonder if, in fact, that’s what it’s – or should be – all about.
