A Short Report On The New Horn

My blog entries stopped in their tracks a long time ago due to time pressures - sorry about that. I thought I should file this report for completeness after someone ermailed me from France asking for advice.

The horn is a lovely instrument. The quality of manufacture is superb. The key thing about this particular model is that the high F side has a slightly smaller bore to compensate for the shorter horn and to try to match the sound to the B flat side. The first time I used the alto for real was for Jesus Christ Superstar, which has a solo hitting the top C.

It seems a little silly to have paid all that money for a high F side that I really only ever use for high A to C, but the reliability of the notes is a great nerve-settler. I have never had a high F horn before, and even though the bore is smaller, the sound is still distinctly ‘thinner’ than the B flat side. I was also surprised at how the position of the right hand has so much more influence on tuning.

Even though my previous horn was also a Paxman (single B flat with F loop), the B flat side of this horn is slightly brighter, and I have compensated by having my right hand slightly further over the bell.

For pedal notes, the single B flat with F loop was actually more versatile. But there are tricks that one can use. For instance, a natural Eb horn can be simulated very successfully with 1,2,3 + stopping valve, useful for those signature arpeggios in Mozart and Beethoven chamber works. The pedal A, the lowest common note in the repertoire, can be played as a fundamental on the alto F but is ridiculously bright. Using the above fingering for B flat with the right hand half stopped is a very workable compromise. The very occasional pedal G’s such as in the Schubert Octet can be played as a fundamental G# on the F side with half-stopping, but they are very difficult to control.

So the horn nearly passes as an all-round instrument. Don’t consider buying one unless you’ve had a chance to play one first, and if you ever play second or fourth position in an orchestra, then you really need a conventional double horn played at least half the time in F. For a truly all round instrument, I would suggest that a triple horn would be a better choice, but you might need to work out at the gym to hold one.

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