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A topic that comes up periodically in my teaching is horn in B-natural. Many horn players I am sure are confused the first time they see “Horn in H” in their part.
This is the German notation for horn in B-natural; for horn in B-flat it will be notated horn in B. The use of horn in H in several works of Brahms is well enough known, but the crook was called for by other composers. A favorite work of mine is the Haydn Symphony No. 46 in B. I performed this work as a student in Aspen years ago as second horn to David Wakefield, a very fun concert.
In that performance we treated the work as being in H basso, down an augmented fourth. I have two recordings of this work. The first is an LP and it is in basso. Later I purchased a CD and it is in H alto! This crook was not standard or even possible on most classical natural horns, while H basso was quite possible using one of several combinations of crooks and couplers. Most likely this work is H basso.
It is not hard to play but works like this Haydn symphony are another reason why you need to have all your transpositions up to speed. One of my projects underway is a technique book; horn in H will be addressed and is a part of building horn technique.
UPDATE: I recently (2018) received a draft of a longer article by Roger Kaza related to Haydn 46. He looks at this in depth but ends up at the same conclusion: H basso is correct for Haydn 46 horn parts.
