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A year ago, I started a short series of posts related to the Vienna horn, which was left incomplete. This final article of the series focuses on the topic of where the Vienna horn fits in the musical world of the 19th century and what materials you might use for practice today.
Composers and the Vienna horn
When writing a work, composers have the sound of the various instruments in mind, and especially so the instruments used at the time by the players in their area.
The key thing is that Austrian players have used horns with Vienna valves from the time of adoption of valved horns in the middle of the nineteenth century — and some leading players continue today. Going back a step, however, that same general type of sound has been maintained since the time of Beethoven and before on the natural horn, as early Vienna horns would have been made with the same bell profiles and tapers as the natural horns in use at the time.
Thus, the music associated with any composer associated with Vienna in the 19th century would be highly appropriate to perform on a Vienna horn. This would include especially the music of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler.
Of course, there are many recordings of works of this type performed on Vienna horn, and you can play anything on a Vienna horn if you wish. The video below, as of this writing, having close to 3 million views:
Backing up a step, what about Strauss, etc.?
Well yes, for sure there is a long history of Viennese performances of works of Strauss, Wagner, etc. Pretty much anything from the 19th century is well suited to the Vienna horn.
For a great idea of how to approach works on the Vienna horn, please see this series on Horn Matters by guest author Nicholas Smith:
Any study materials highly suited to the Vienna horn?
From my context here in the USA, as an enthusiast of vintage single horns, I feel anything by Schantl is a very appropriate study material to use. Mentioned also in part II of this series, Josef Schantl (1842-1902) was Principal Horn of the Imperial and Royal Court Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic, and has also been credited with founding the Vienna Waldhornverein. Among many significant performances he performed on the premieres of Brahms second and third symphonies, and also the third and eighth symphonies of Bruckner.
More importantly for us today, he had a series of study materials (published posthumously) that are highly suited to the Vienna horn. His Große theortisch-praktische Horn-Schule was published in four volumes in 1903. Probably the best-known portion today in the USA is volume III, which was reprinted in 1941 in abridged form as Preparatory Melodies to Solo Work, edited by Max P. Pottag. Some players also make much use of what was published as volume II and has been reprinted as the Grand Theoretical and Practical Method for the Valve Horn (by Wind Music). I also enjoy playing from his volume IV, which was reprinted by Wind Music as Kopprasch, 90 Etudes — a vastly different Kopprasch edition than the one people typically use, breathing new life into these venerable etudes.
At least that is what I’ve begun playing Vienna horn lately. Over the holiday break I do plan to play it more, with a goal of getting more used to the higher resistance of the instrument I have available to me (compared to my Germanic rotary valve single horns). Looking forward to some classic horn sounds in my practice.
BONUS: How do Vienna valves work?
I was interested to see a drawing from my dissertation recently pass through Instagram, seen here (and also found online in this article). When I was putting together my dissertation, I could not find a drawing that showed what I wanted exactly, and I leaned on my experience in a junior high drafting class (!!) to put this drawing together. I think it still pretty clearly shows how the double pistons of a Vienna valve work. The lasting interest in Vienna horns shows the success of the design, one that every horn player can aspire to at least briefly experience the classic sound and feel of this iconic instrument.
Return to the beginning of the Vienna Horn series
