Nomenclature
Horn players share a strong bond. The late Phil Farkas, an outstanding
player and teacher, felt it was mainly based on sympathy because of the special
problems we face. There is an Internet Horn List with over 700 members
worldwide. The International
Horn Society is well known and holds annual gatherings of hornists.
There has been some debate about the proper name for our
instrument. Some players and most lay people will call it the French Horn.
Others feel that the only correct name is Horn.
My own feeling is that Wagner wrote for the Horn. Beethoven wrote for the
Horn, as did Gustav Mahler. Most orchestral parts say simply "Horn". This
is the name we shall use in these columns, while allowing that there are some points on the other
side. The IHS prefers the word Horn.
Clams and Accidents
The bond of sympathy mentioned above is not hard to explain. Anyone who
has attended a live symphony concert has noticed that from time to
time the horn section can be heard to emit a few "clams" or "splats", or in
plain English, missed notes. The reasons for this exist in the field of
physics and have to do with the length of the brass tubing and the harmonic
series, but here we will simply concede that the horns play more wrong
notes than other instruments, or at least more that are actually heard.
Conductors have known this for years. Some have tried to overcome
it with tyranny, others with indifference or even kindness (!), but nothing
much seems to work. Pierre Monteux used to look the other way when he cued
in the horns. These days you seldom hear a "clam" on a recording, but that
is because they get edited out. A live concert is another matter, and it is
rare to hear a perfect performance. I once heard the esteemed Vienna
Philharmonic play the introduction to the Tschaikowsky 4th Symphony in which
most of the 4 horns played the wrong note. If experts like these do it,
what hope is there for the rest of us mere mortals?
RR
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