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The second of two posts on performing Dukas Villanelle, posted on 10/7/05 in the original Horn Notes Blog. The first article is here.
A couple posts ago I wrote about the Villanelle and the natural horn request found in the International/Chambers edition of this work. Another spot that has an element of “controversy” about it is the echo horn effect requested in the Mason Jones edition (found in Schirmer, Solos for the Horn Player) but not found in the International/Chambers edition. Chambers changes this effect to stopped horn.
First, let me say between the two I prefer the Jones edition if for no other reason than all the French terms are translated accurately. Both editions have plusses and minuses. Visually the International edition matches the original 1906 Durand edition except for dropping in a few changes. There is no notation to be found in the original for example to play the opening “without valves” as requested by Chambers. I don’t know where this notation came from, perhaps it is authentic, but it is not in the Jones edition or the original.
On to our topic of the moment. The passage that starts on the last stave of page 2 in the Durand and International editions is marked Sons bouches (En echo) in the Durand edition and (stopped) in the International edition, with Mason Jones marking the same passage echo. So what is it, stopped or echo?
Stopped horn is performed by transposing down a half step and closing the bell fully and echo horn is performed by transposing up a half step and closing the bell nearly fully. It is an effect related to the way you would perform closed notes on the natural horn, while stopped horn is purely a valved horn effect. They are two different effects; while sons bouchés is properly translated as stopped, Mason Jones I believe is reading the meaning of the original term correctly by notating it only as echo horn.
So what should you do if you perform the work? I always explain the notation to students and suggest that they try echo horn but reality is it is more difficult to play echo horn in tune for most players. In the range of the Dukas solo it is OK for many with practice. But realistically, from the audience and at the volume level requested, there is virtually no difference in sound between echo horn and stopped.
I am as I write this [2005] working on another French work that requests echo horn, Cantecor by Henir Busser (GREAT WORK!) and will most likely in performance next weekend play the echo horn passages stopped. The notes requested are lower in our range and easier to play in tune stopped, and, realistically, the difference between the two effects is pretty subtle at low dynamics.
So in that sense Chambers is right, stopped is probably a better way to perform the passage (tuning is certainly more reliable/predictable), but be idealistic and give echo horn a try too.
UPDATE: For more on the topic see this article.
UPDATE II (2017): And, based on the comment sheets I just read from my students, if you enter the IHCA you better play it echo horn as several judges are extremely idealistic about this and must literally be watching the fingerings as you play. I really don’t think though, again, that from an audience perspective anyone can hear the difference at the low dynamic involved.
In my own performances of this work I have only done the echo horn as echo horn one time, and for that one I used a piston valve Selmer with a very small bell. The small bell is much better for echo horn than a modern instrument, another reason to play it stopped now…
