What would a Horn Soloist do?

One thing I have been thinking about lately is the topic of equipment and fingering choices in relation to orchestral and solo horn playing.

Most horn players in the USA are essentially orchestral players in their equipment and outlook. Which is fine, but it does lead to a type of set-up that is tonally oriented and not necessarily ideal for playing technical music in the cleanest manner.

Orchestral playing is very double horn based in the United States, with the “switch” from F to B-flat horn at the G# on the second line. One exception was my predecessor at ASU, Thomas Bacon, who set up his playing around solo playing. He normally played (and plays) a single B-flat horn; this type of set-up I have experimented with some this fall and does in fact result in easier and quicker technique. A fact I am sure not lost on for example Dennis Brain, who early in his career used a single F and switched to the single B-flat for all the later recordings that we have all heard. Going back a couple more generations, Franz Strauss was a single B-flat player for most of his career as well for I am sure much the same reasons.

European players (with the exception of the Viennese with their single F horns with double piston valves) generally play in a much more B-flat horn centered manner than we do here. While most actually play on double horns, they also mostly play on the B-flat side. Ever notice that most European horns can be set to stand in B-flat? This is because players mostly play them in B-flat. This helps produce a cleaner technique in things like solo literature. Which makes a lot of sense as their auditions are more solo oriented than the heavily excerpt driven auditions seen in the United States.

In the USA we mostly persist with a double horn approach that makes close to equal use of the F and B-flat horns. It is an approach driven by tone and tradition. There have been exceptions; the late Louis Stout was for example a very strong supporter of a technique focused on the B-flat horn. Ironically, even though this type of approach is not standard in the United States, I believe that most conductors would probably prefer it with the cleaner technique, and reality is that low horn players make frequent use of B-flat horn alternate fingerings for just that reason.

Even on triple horn you have several options; you could finger it like sort of a super double horn, a super single B-flat, or as a super descant. Certainly Phil Myers was going for an approach other than the super double horn approach when I noted a few posts ago that it took him two years to get really comfortable with fingerings on the triple horn.

I talk about this topic and more in the latest episode (episode 70) of The MelloCast, and I have information on the single B-flat horn here. It is a big topic, that of fingerings and fingering choices. My teachers were not as a group that into alternate fingerings and the B-flat horn in the lower range, so I don’t have the technical fluency I would like to have especially in the range right above written middle C. The next several months my personal project is to get much more fluent with my B-flat horn fingerings in this range. I suspect that the concerts I have today could be my last on a standard double horn with standard double horn fingerings (I took a break from triple horn this fall), I am experimenting with more of a horn soloist approach to fingerings.

This will very likely be my last post of the year. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!