Review: The Reynolds Pottag Model Horn

It took me several years on the faculty at ASU to even notice this horn, a Reynolds Pottag Model horn. When I noticed it what really caught my attention was that it has a Lawson FB 114 leadpipe, but still somehow ended up among the horns used in our methods classes. Late this summer I checked it out, I had for some time been curious about the potential of this horn.

The Reynolds Pottag Model is something of a classic model, and it has actually won blind tests horns done at two different recent horn workshops by Ken Pope. Max Pottag was a famous, big name player of the past; he was a student of Gumpert at the Leipzig Conservatory, a member of the Chicago Symphony from 1907-1947, and several of his publications are standards that remain in print to this day.

Goes without saying, there are a lot of interesting places on the Internet. One of those places if you are interested in Reynolds horns is the site Contempora Corner, which has a great description of this horn. This is also just a fascinating website to check out, “Dedicated to the history and brass instruments of the F.A. Reynolds Company.”

The Reynolds Pottag Model was introduced in the 1940s and was produced until 1961. As to the ASU horn, based on the markings it is the Roth-Reynolds version of the horn produced after 1952. According to Contempora Corner,

At some point in the early history of the Reynolds Double Horn, Reynolds contracted Max Pottag, long-time second horn with the Chicago Symphony to promote sales of the new horn. It’s yet unclear to what extent and exactly when Pottag was initially involved with Reynolds; however, while the Reynolds horn uses the updated Kruspe-Horner wrap, to many ears it sounds more like the smaller Geyer horn that Pottag was using at the time, perhaps due in part to a smaller bell throat than the Kruspe-Horner or Conn 8D models. By the mid 1940s, Reynolds was marketing their double horn as the Pottag Model. In 1947, Pottag retired from the CSO after 40 years of playing and began teaching at Northwestern.

They also quote his endorsement:

Max Pottag | “The Reynolds Double French Horn is a most sensitively responding instrument and has an unusually easy-speaking upper register – so important to Horn players. Its wondrous tone quality, complete even range and sureness is noteworthy. I am using it exclusively, love it and I am happy indeed to recommend it to any French Horn player.”

I would say that the ASU horn has a good upper register, and the intonation is a bit squirrely but manageable. It is pretty responsive but the strength of this horn would seem to me to be the tone. It has a very nice sound, they did get something really right about the bell and tapers and metal thickness and temper. Photos of a couple more of these horns may be found at Horn-U-Copia.

This brings us back to the playing test that Ken Pope had at the 2008 IHS Denver horn workshop. The results are here and in short show that when people did not know it was a Reynolds they loved the tone and when they did know it was a Reynolds they hated it. There is a bias against Reynolds horns to be sure, but if one of these classic horns comes your way they are worth checking out.