Composing for French Horns

[stevel]

Originally Posted by reith

Interesting. I write horn parts with a key signature if appropriate but I'm looking through several scores with the following opening keys:
Delius' "Paris" (D major)
Ravel "Dapnis and Chloe" (A maj)
Vaughan Williams Symphony 6 (E min)

and the horn parts have no key signature.

??? Have I been wrong all this time?

Reith

Yes :-)

What I think everyone is missing:

A long time ago, horn players did use crooks as someone mentioned. So all of the music was written in C, and they put in the appropriate crook.

In Wagner's day, Horns became valved so crooks became a thing of the past. However, as musicians are always apt to do, tradition held strong (and of course initially, one couldn't gurantee that the horn player had a valved horn, so the music had to be "backward compatible"). So Horn music was and has still been traditionally written without a key signature.

So those of you talking about it transposing are correct - but the accidentals are written in the music rather than as a key signature.

All this comes to a head in the 20th century when music becomes so chromatic it's really kind of pointless to write key signatures in any of the parts. But, two things have happened:

1. People still keep the tradition, and write Horn parts in C and write in accidentals.

2. Composers who don't know any better, and Horn players adventurous enough to want to play something other than the Harmonic series in the music of Beethoven have adopted the use of "transposed key signatures" like Clarinetists and Trumpet players have (by the way, in the past, those instrumentalists too used to read "in C", it's just that Clarinet settled into Bb, and Trumpets got valves and settled into Bb a tad more quickly than Horn did).

Now, how the horn is written often depends on what edition of a score you're looking at. Most scores have been modernized by at least putting in accidentals. But many Horn players (and other transposing insturment players, especially trumpet) can read the older music and are used to transposing "in their head" (that is, In C, but in the key of Bb without the accidentals written in because it was originally written for crooks). So you still see older scores like this. And of course, there are modern scores, or modern editions of scores where the horn player is given a key signature, whether they like it or not!

I personally don't write for Horn because they can't go for more than 5 notes without cracking a note :-). If I did though, I'd give them a key signature if the music was key based.

Steve

[Boneman]

I personally don't write for Horn because they can't go for more than 5 notes without cracking a note :-).

You really ought to hope there are no horn players around Steve! I love the sound of a horn ensemble. For me Hank Mancini used them wonderfully in his music.

[stevel]

Originally Posted by Boneman

I personally don't write for Horn because they can't go for more than 5 notes without cracking a note :-).

You really ought to hope there are no horn players around Steve! I love the sound of a horn ensemble. For me Hank Mancini used them wonderfully in his music.

Oh, you don't know the old joke?

Q: How do you make a Tromobone sound like a French Horn?

A: Put your hand in the bell and miss every other note!

And in response, I agree that the horn is as beautiful instrument as any when played WELL. It just seems harder to find people who play as WELL as Violinists, Trumpeters, Flautists, etc.

Steve

[Boneman]

That is probably due to the percentages Steve. More of those players around. Horn is a specialist instrument that requires a very special player to get anything out of it.

[Thorolf]

The key word here is “specialist” instrument. I always recommend to any composer to try to make sound on as many instruments that you can lay your hands on. Then you’ll discover the main difference between horn and the others: The core range which starts on the first overtone on all the other brass instruments is one fifth higher on the horn, starting on the second overtone. This means that the overtones in the core range and upwards is much closer to eachother than on e. g. a trumpet. This is mirrored in the fact that horn in F has it’s second overtone on middle C notated, while all others has their first overtone here, when notated in treble clef.

This actually means that the so called “horn in F” really is a Bb instrument, notated one fifth lower relative to the overtones than the other treble notated brass instruments.

While other brass players can rely partly on the fingerings to get it right when learning the instruments, this really cannot be done on a horn, as the overtones are so close that you are bound to hit the wrong one if you don’t really make the tone you want with your lips.

This looks dizzying, but 5-10 minutes of hands on experience explains everything…

Regards