- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
A Kruspe Kruspe? Any serious student of the horn today has heard of Kruspe style (or Kruspe wrap) horns, but many do not realize that Kruspe refers to an actual maker of horns (in Germany), and that the famous model (their Horner model), although popular in the USA and copied by Conn and others, was just one model out of a full line of horns. In addition, it must be noted clearly that Kruspe is still in business!
That general topic was covered in this prior article, but our specific subject today is this horn, a postwar Kruspe Horner model. Beautifully constructed, I was very fortunate to be able to purchase this instrument, one that I knew about, when it recently became available.
Prior to teaching at Arizona State University I taught at SUNY Potsdam, where I was the only the third person to hold the horn faculty position. The original horn teacher at SUNY Potsdam (then known as the Potsdam State Teachers College) was Perry Yaw. Yaw was a 1940 graduate of Mansfield University who subsequently served during WWII as a bombardier on a B-17. Following his service, he received his Master’s degree from the University of Michigan, joining the faculty in Potsdam in 1947 (as their only brass teacher at the time), where he taught for the next 33 years. Dr. Yaw (he received his Doctorate from Columbia in 1955) retired in 1980 (the same year I graduate from high school!), and remained in Potsdam the rest of his life.
Where this is significant to the story of this particular Kruspe horn is it was purchased by the school for Yaw to use as horn faculty. I do not know what kind of horn he had used previously, but this was his horn for nearly his entire professional life. He was the sole user of this horn prior to today, with it seeing little use after 1980. The horn was at his house as emeritus faculty when I was in Potsdam, where it remained until his passing in 2015. At that point, the longtime repair tech for SUNY Potsdam purchased the horn, planning to do some work on it, but eventually I purchased it from him in early 2020.
The vast majority of Kruspe horns you will run into are pre-war. Several things confirm this a being a post-war product, one prime thing being that the engraving lacks a DRGM number. The use of these numbers (they are the German patent numbers of their horn designs) ended with the fall of the Reich in 1945.
Based on when Yaw was hired, and the details of this horn, I would date it to ca. 1948. It is nearly all original with very little evidence of any repair.
The bell is made in the old fashioned way, what we today would refer to as “hand hammered” as the bell is first roughly formed from a sheet of brass with a seam to the edge of the bell, after which it is spun to a final shape on a large mandrel on a large lathe. Over years, this Kruspe horn developed a crack at the rim where the seam ends, which had to be patched. This was one of a number of fixes and upgrades done by James Patterson of Patterson Hornworks, the biggest update being a valve job and the next biggest stripping the old/heavy lacquer off the horn.
While at first glance it looks like a brass Conn 8D, there are some very easily recognizable differences when you know what to look for. They include:
- Rounded 1st valve Bb slide
- Main and F horn slides more angular in shape
- F slide on back put on differently
- Braces different
- More angular tubes in the F horn branches
This instrument is almost all brass. Whoever made the valve section (I’m guessing made by a different maker) used some nickel silver (including four nickel silver ferrules), but other than there and the soldered slide tube ends (they are not turned from the tube end itself as we expect to see today) there are only four other pieces of nickel silver on the entire horn. Postwar shortages of materials no doubt, but it makes for an interesting, and classic look.
In addition, clearly this was handmade. The build quality is excellent, the person or persons who put this together were high-level artisans.
The one odd thing is the thumb trigger. It is not at all uncommon to see these rebuilt in various ways on Kruspe horns, the ergonomics were not great on these as built. In this case, it looks like it might have been rebuilt twice, as you can see two levers on the thumb valve! The upper one is the one that is more comfortable for me, but for a player with small hands the lower one would be better. I think what happened is that originally Yaw had it reworked with the lower paddle and then added the upper paddle when that was deemed too low. Ideally, I wish there was one lever between the two, but until the current levers fall apart I will leave them be. It is a conversation piece for sure.
For comparison, the 1936 Kruspe horn used by Mason Jones throughout his career may be seen here in the Dick Martz horn website. The overall details are the same, but there are a lot of small differences. Some are due to being built differently, and others relate to repairs/modifications. The most notable thing that catches my eye is the main slide is clearly longer. My guess is Jones had it lengthened, and I wish this horn had a longer main slide. I am not going to modify the original slide, but if I can locate a tube of the correct size, I will likely make a longer slide as seen on the Jones horn.
One other small detail is that while the Mason Jones horn has a serial number, this one does not. Fortunately, the fine folks at Potsdam State Teachers College did engrave a number on the bell brace for their inventory purposes.
So how does it play? Sound? This horn does play nicely, the sound has a lot of depth and character, and seems like it would carry well in a hall. Student reactions in my office have been very positive. It is dark at low dynamics and brightens up at high dynamics in a nice way. I’ll need to live with it longer to know if it becomes my main horn, but it has a very comfortable feel, something very appreciated as we end this strangest of years.
It would be an interesting project to see how far toward the feel and sound of this Kruspe one could get by modifying a less expensive modern Kruspe style horn to match in terms of bracing, etc. This is a project I might take on — time will tell. Kruspe style horns could make a comeback, if they regularly hit the right tonal and playing zone such as this horn has.
To close, the short interview below is a wonderful memory of Perry Yaw. Besides looking very fit for his age, (I was told that he was an avid outdoorsman), he was always a supporter of horn. I enjoyed seeing his friendly face at concerts when I was in Potsdam, and I enjoy the connection to him through his classic Kruspe horn.
