The hunting-horn, whether in its simplest form or with the one spiral,
was held with the bell upwards on a level with the huntsman's head or
just above it.[31]
A horn of the same fine calibre as the French horn, 3 or 4 ft. in
length, slightly bent to take the curve of the body, was in use in
Italy, it would seem, in the 15th century.[32] It was held slanting
across the body with the bell already slightly parabolic, at arm's
length to the left side.
The hunting- and post-horns were favourite emblems on medieval coats
of arms, more especially in Germany[33] and Bohemia.
It is necessary at this point to draw attention to the fact that the
French horn is a hybrid having affinities with both trumpet and
primitive animal horn, or with _buccina_ and _cornu_, and that both
types, although frequently misnamed and confused by medieval writers
and miniaturists, subsisted side by side, evolving independently until
they merged in the so-called French horn. Both buccina and cornu after
the fall of the Roman Empire, while Western arts and crafts were in
their infancy, were made straight, being then known as the busine or
straight trumpet (busaun or posaun in Germany), and the long horn,
_Herhorn_, slightly curved.[34]
[Illusration: FIG. 4.--Medieval Circular Horn.]
[Illusration: FIG. 5.--Medieval Circular Horn, 1589.]
From two medieval representations of instruments like the Roman cornu
one might be led to conclude that the instrument had been revived and
was in use from the 14th century. A wooden bas-relief on the under
part of the seats of the choir of Worcester cathedral,[35] said to
date from the 14th century, shows a musician in a robe with long
sleeves of fur playing the horn (fig. 4). The tube winds from the
mouth in a circle reaching to his waist, passes under the right arm
across the shoulders with the bell stretching out horizontally over
his left shoulder. The tube, of strictly conical bore, is made in
three pieces, the joints being strengthened by means of two rings. The
other example is German, and figures in the arms of the city of
Frankfort-on-Main.[36] Here in the two opposite corners are two
cherubs playing immense cornua. The bore of the instruments (fig. 5)
is of a calibre suggestive of the contrabass tuba; the circle formed
is of a diameter sufficiently large to accommodate the youthful
performer in a sitting posture; the bell is the forerunner of that of
the modern saxophone, shaped like a gloxinea; the mouthpiece is
cup-shaped. It is possible, of course, that these two examples are
attempts to reproduce the classic instrument, but the figures of the
musicians and the feeling of the whole scheme of ornamentation seem to
render such an explanation improbable. Moreover, Sebastian
Virdung,[37] writing on musical instruments at the beginning of the
16th century, gives a drawing of a cornu coiled round tightly, the
tubing being probably soldered together at certain points. Virdung
calls this instrument a _Jegerhorn_, and the short hunting-horn
_Acherhorn_ (Ackerhorn--the synonym of the modern Waldhorn). The scale
of the former could have consisted only of the first eight harmonics,
including the fundamental, which would be easily obtained on an
instrument of such a large calibre. Mersenne,[38] a century and a
quarter later, gives a drawing of the same kind of horn among his
_cors de chasse_, but does not in his description display his
customary intimate knowledge of his subject; it may be that he was
dealing at second-hand with an instrument of which he had had little
practical experience. Praetorius[39] gives as Jagerhorn only the
simple forms of crescent-shaped horns with a single spiral; the
spirally-wound horn of Virdung is replaced by a new instrument--the
_Jagertrummet_ (huntsman's trumpet)--of the same form, but less
cumbersome, of cylindrical bore excepting at the bell end and having a
crook inserted between the mouthpiece and the main coils. The tube,
which could not have been less than 8 ft. long, produced the harmonic
series of the cavalry trumpet from the 3rd to the 12th. The
restrictions placed upon the use of the cavalry trumpet would have
rendered it unavailable for use in the hunting-field, but the
snake-shaped model, as Praetorius describes it, was a decided
improvement on the horn, although inferior in resonance to the cavalry
model. Here then are the materials for the fusion of the trumpet and
hunting-horn into the natural or hand-horn of the 17th and 18th
centuries. There is evidence, however, that a century earlier, i.e. at
the end of the 15th century, the art of bending a brass tube of the
delicate proportions of the French horn, which is still a test of fine
workmanship, had been successfully practised. In an illustrated
edition of Virgil's works published in Strassburg in 1502 and
emanating from Gruninger's office, Brant being responsible for the
illustrations, the lines (_Aen._ viii. 1-2) "Ut belli signum Laurenti
Turnus ab arce Extulit: et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu" are
illustrated by two soldiers, one with the sackbut (posaune, the
descendant of the buccina), the other with a horn wound spirally round
his body in three coils, which appear to have a conical bore from the
funnel-shaped mouthpiece to the bell which extends at the back of the
head horizontally over the left shoulder (fig. 6). There is ample
room for the performer's head and shoulders to pass through the
circle: the length of the tube could not therefore have been much less
than 16 ft. long, equivalent to the horn in C or B[flat] basso. In the
same book (pl. ccci.) is another horn, smaller, differing slightly in
the disposition of the coils and held like the modern horn in front.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Spirally Coiled Horn from Virgil's Works
(1502), folio cccviii. versa.]
These horns were not used for hunting but for war in conjunction with
the draw-trumpet. Brant could not have imagined these instruments, and
must have seen the originals or at least drawings of them; the
instruments probably emanated from the famed workshops of Nuremberg,
being intended mainly for use in Italy, and had not been generally
adopted in Germany. The significance of these drawings of natural
horns in a German work of the dawn of the 16th century will not be
lost. It disposes once and for all of the oft-repeated fable that the
hunting-horn first assumed its present form in France about 1680, a
statement accepted without question by authorities of all countries,
but without reference to any _piece justificative_ other than the
story of the Bohemian Count Sporken first quoted by Gerber,[40] and
repeated in most musical works without the context. The account which
gave rise to this statement had been published in 1782 in a book by
Faustinus Prochaska:[41] "Vix Parisiis inflandi cornua venatoria
inventa ars quum delectatus suavitate cantus duos ex hominibus sibi
obnoxiis ea instituendos curavit. Id principium apud nos artis, qua
hodie Bohemi excellere putantur." In a preceding passage after the
count's name, Franz Anton, Graf von Sporken, are the words "anno
saeculi superioris octogesimo quum iter in externas provincias
suscepisset," &c. There is no reference here to the invention of the
horn in Paris or to the folding of the tube spirally, but only to the
manner of eliciting sound from the instrument. Count Sporken,
accustomed to the medieval hunting fanfares in which the tone of the
horn approximated to the blare of the trumpet, was merely struck by
the musical quality of the true horn tone elicited in Paris, and gave
France the credit of the so-called invention, which probably more
properly belonged to Italy. The account published by Prochaska a
hundred years after, without reference to the source from which it was
obtained, finds no corroboration from French sources. Had the French
really made any substantial improvement in the hunting-horn at the end
of the 17th century, transforming it from the primitive instrument
into an orchestral instrument, it would only be reasonable to expect
to find some evidence of this, considering the importance attached to
the art of music at the court of Louis XIV., whose musical
establishments, la Chapelle Musique,[42] la Musique de la Chambre du
Roi and la Musique de la Grande Ecurie, included the most brilliant
French artists. One would expect to find horns of that period by
French makers among the relics of musical instruments in the museums
of Europe. This does not seem to be the case. Moreover, in Diderot and
d'Alembert's _Encyclopedie_ (1767) the information given under the
heading _trompe ou cor de chasse grand et petit_ is very vague, and
contains no hint of any special merit due to France for any
improvement in construction. Among the plates (vol. v., pl. vii.) is
given an illustration of a horn very similar to the instruments made
in England and Germany nearly a century earlier, but with a
funnel-shaped mouthpiece. Dr Julius Ruhlmann states that there are two
horns by Raoux, bearing the date 1703,[43] in the Bavarian National
Museum in Munich,[44] but although fine examples, one in silver, the
other in brass (fig. 6) by Raoux, they turn out on inquiry[45] to bear
no date whatever. Ruhlmann's statement in the same article, that in
the arms of the family of Wartenberg-Kolb (now extinct), which goes
back to 1169, there is a hunting-horn coiled round in a complete
circle is also misleading. The horn (a post-horn) did not appear in
the arms of the family in question until 1699, when the first peer
Casimir Johann Friedrich was created hereditary Post-Master. The
influence of such erroneous statements in the work of noted writers is
far-reaching. Inquiries at the department of National Archives in
Paris concerning Raoux, the founder of the afterwards famous firm of
horn-makers whose model with pistons is used in the British military
bands and at Kneller Hall, proved fruitless. Fetis states that he
worked during the second half of the 18th century. Albert Chouquet[46]
states that he has seen a trumpet by Raoux, "seul ordinaire du Roy,
Place du Louvre" dated 1695. The inscriptions on the horns in question
are: For No. 105, a silver horn of the simplest form of construction
in D, "Fait a Paris par Raoux"; for No. 106, a brass horn engraved
with a crown on an ermine mantle with the initials C. A. (Carl
Albert), "Fait a Paris par Raoux, seul ordinaire du Roy, Place du
Louvre." Both horns measure across the coils 56 cm. and across the
bell 27(1/2). They are practically the same as the _cors de chasse_
now in use in French and Belgian military bands, the large diameter of
the coil enabling the performer to carry it over his shoulder. The
orchestral horn was given a narrower diameter in order to facilitate
its being held in front of the performer in a convenient position for
stopping the bell with the right hand. No. 107 in the same collection,
a horn of German construction, bears the inscription "Macht Jacob
Schmid in Nurnberg" and the trademark "J. S." with a bird. A horn in
E[flat]] of French make, having fleur-de-lys stamped on the rim of the
bell, and measuring only 15 in. across the coils to the exterior edge
of the bell--therefore a very small horn--is preserved in the Grand
Ducal Museum at Darmstadt.[47] A horn in F[sharp] (probably F in
modern high pitch), having the rim ornamented as above and the
inscription "Fait a Paris, Carlin, ordinaire du Roy," readily gives
the harmonics from the 3rd to the 12th.[48] The extreme width is 20
in.[49] Carlin, who lived at rue Croix des Petits Champs, died about
1780. The earliest dated horn extant is believed to be the one
preserved in the Hohenzollern Museum in Sigmaringen, "Machts Wilhelm
Haas, Nurnberg, 1688."[50] Another early German horn engraved "Machts
Heinr. Rich. Pfeiffer in Leipzig, 1697,"[51] formerly in Paul de Wit's
museum in Leipzig and now transferred with the rest of the collection
to Cologne, is of similar construction.
[Illustration: From a Photo by K. Teufel.