Download the Original Kopprasch Etudes

Perhaps the oldest of the “old standard” horn etudes are the Kopprasch etudes. Back in 1997 my article on the history of the Kopprasch etudes was published in The Horn Call, and a version of it has been online since then in Horn Articles Online in the section on the early valved horn, split into two parts. In short, these etudes were first published in 1832 or 33 in versions for high and low horn, and the version we most commonly use today is a heavily edited version of the low horn etudes from 1935, which is itself a reworking of an edition from the 1880s.

The original version from 1832/33 is available as a download in the IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library. A very long post is possible to talk out the whole big topic of copyright and laws in different countries (I give it a brief try in this post) but this edition is certainly in the public domain everywhere.

You would not want to take this version into a lesson with your teacher but this an interesting edition to look over, it shows if nothing else just how heavily edited the modern version is, as the above musical example shows. The page with the Kopprasch downloads is here.

The Op. 5 high horn etudes are not nearly as well known today as the Op. 6 low horn etudes. I first saw these reprinted in the 1990 D.M.A. treatise by Robert Merrill Culbertson “The Kopprasch Etudes for Horn” and supplied a copy from this dissertation to David Thompson, who in turn published a nice clean version at Thompson Edition. I wrote the foreword for this publication as well. After it appeared in print let us just say a personality on one of the horn lists was a bit upset with me, he somehow had the idea that he had given me this copy and that I had given it to Thompson. No, I did not get the copy from him, I purchased my copy of that dissertation from what was then known as University Microfilms. Later I obtained a very clean copy of volume 1 of the original Op. 5 etudes, and I know for a fact there are yet other copies floating around the world besides the one that is now online.

Again, this is not a version to take into your lesson if your teacher told you to go buy a Kopprasch book but it is for sure an interesting one to look at.