From Hunting Fields to Concert Halls

“The hunting field was the theatre of the world, the huntsman its knight and cavalier. The horn, as the ceremonial instrument of the hunt, became its musical symbol, embodying in sound the principle upon which the very life and thought of the Central European aristocracy were built” (Fitzpatrick). It is hard to say where the mounted hunt originated but many sources point towards Versailles, France. Gaston Phébus wrote a book about the mounted hunt in 1387 to 1389 (pictured below) that described the use of the horn in the hunt. He wrote, “If you want to blow the hunt over, that is, when the hunt is over and the dogs, who are in the middle of the forest, barking one by one, no longer hunt, then blow in this way to bring them to you: one long signal, then four very short signals, and then one long signal and four very short ones.” Like Phébus says, the horn was used to send signals throughout the hunting party to communicate messages. The dogs were also trained in the signals used with the horn so they could be recalled wherever they were in the forest. If someone was to hold a mounted hunt, they were deemed a part of high society. The money it takes to fund a hunting party is exuberant. One would pay for the horses, the uniforms, the weaponry, the instruments, and sometimes they would even hire the people themselves. Only the wealthiest could afford a mounted hunt.

The hunting horn segways into the natural horn. In fact they are basically twins but with different purposes. It is from these mounted hunts in Versailles where the name “French Horn” came from but the horn as society knows it today, is not French. In 1680 the founder-patron of artistic horn playing and Bohemian nobleman, Franz Anton von Sporck, visited Versailles and stayed with King Louis XIV (Fitzpatrick). Naturally Sporck found himself as a part of the King's hunting party and there he witnessed the use of the hunting horn. Sporck loved the sound of the horn so much that he hired two of his trumpeters,Wenzel Sweda and Peter Röllig, in his personal orchestra to learn the instrument. When he returned to his estate in Bohemia he instituted the trumpet players, now horn players, in his orchestra which became the first time the horn was used in any kind of classical concert setting. Sporck also created his own version of the mounted hunt, inspired by the ones in Versailles, which became so popular for its hunting band that he was named “Erster Weidmann Europas” or “The First Huntsman of Europe”.

Wenzel Sweda and Peter Röllig are the second piece of the puzzle that is “modern horn playing”. While Sporck gave them the opportunity to play the horn in a concert hall, Sweda and Röllig were the ones who quickly spread their knowledge to their peers. This puts them at the head of an unbroken tradition of hornists whose descendants can still be heard in Vienna and Prague today (Fitzpatrick). Sporcks orchestra seemed to gain momentum with every concert both Sweda and Röllig performed in. Soon several of the estates around Sporck instituted horn players into their orchestra and the idea spread like a wildfire from there. By the close of the second decade of the eighteenth century there was a flourishing tradition of orchestral horn-playing that spread from Bohemia to virtually every musical center of the Holy Roman Empire.

On one trip in particular, Sporck’s orchestra accompanied him to Vienna. This is where Sweda and Röllig gave the hunting horns over to the hands of Viennese trumpet makers Michael and Johannes Leichnambschneider. It was these brothers that altered the hunting horn from the bright and brash sound of the French hunting fields to the soft and veiled quality of the Viennese orchestra. The biggest contribution that the Leichnambschneider brothers made to revolutionize the horn was to add crooks (Fitzpartick). Historians believe that the crooked horn was introduced in 1718. Now, instead of the fixed mouthpiece section, horn players could remove the tubing from a socket and replace it with other coiled crooks (pictured below). This was done to raise or lower the pitch of the horn so composers could write for the horn in several different keys and all the horn player would need to do is switch from one crook to the next. With the crooked horn, the performer would need to simply arrange the crooks to hang on one arm like a bracelet and gracefully make his entrance with the horn itself under his other. From there he could play in whatever key or pitch he wanted.

Up until 1750 horn players were still just using the buzz of their lips to play the horn. It wasn't until this decade that a Bohemian hornist and teacher, Anton Joseph Hampl, devised a system of using his right hand in the bell of the horn to change the pitch and bridge the gaps or the natural partial series (Fitzpatrick). This technique once again revolutionized horn playing. Not only are horn players able to play the chromatic scale and opened more possibilities in the horn's most beautiful range, but it also gave the horn a new tone quality. The tone became that dark and veiled quality that the horn is still known for today. Around 1765 in Vienna, Joseph Huschauer and Carl Startzer enlarged the bell of the horn to accommodate this technique. This is the direct descendant of what society knows as “modern horn” today.

Throughout this time the mouthpiece used for the horn was going through significant changes as well. It is because of the mouthpiece that the horn prior to 1750 sounded most like a trumpet. It seems that the material used was that of brass and cow horn which doesn't seem to be the factor that made the most difference but rather the shape. The mouthpiece had a deep cup and straight sides which gave it the trumpet-like sound. It had a broad rim which gave the horn player the ability to play up in the high range while also pushing the mouthpiece hard against their face. When the hand horn technique was invented the mouthpiece went through another change that gave it a thinner rim since the use of the hand could reach the high notes. This change also helped to create that dark, rich tone that the horn is known and loved for.

While the seeds of modern horn playing may have sprouted from the use of the hunting horn in France, it was the Bohemians and Austrians who nurtured this musical evolution, allowing the harmonious resonance of horn players to reverberate across orchestras on a global scale. Their contributions not only enriched the soundscapes of symphonies but also orchestrated a symphony of collaboration, enabling horn virtuosos worldwide to blend their notes seamlessly in a crescendo of international musical harmony.

Sources:

Fitzpatrick, Horace. “The Valveless Horn in Modern Performances of Eighteenth-Century Music.” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 91, 1964, pp. 45–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/765964. Accessed 5 Dec. 2023.

Phébus, Gaston. Livre de La Chasse. 1301.