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Julia Rose in a very recent post on a classical concert she performed with the Columbus Symphony brought up the topic of Dvorak and the natural horn.
Speaking of natural horn, I had a funny thought during … Dvorak’s Symphony #8. The 3rd movement (begins in D horn, then the 3rd horn has 4 fast measures (in 3/4, conducted in one!) to switch crooks to C horn for about 8 bars, and then has 17 bars to switch back to D horn. I had a vision of a frantic Bohemian horn player dropping his D crook during the 4 bar rest and making a total racket and embarassment of himself. 3rd horn players are usually the klutzy ones…I can say this because I am one! What was Dvorak thinking?
This work is a great example of one that runs up against the question of what the composer seems to think players will do as notated in the part versus what the horn players must have actually done. First, a major point: this is not natural horn writing, it is valved horn writing. Dvorak seems to be thinking that his horn players will be changing crooks on valved horn, such as on the one in the illustration with this post with a crook just like a natural horn, playing in a variety of keys to suit the key of the music better. It could be done! But reality is horn players pretty quickly quit bothering and transposed everything to F no matter if they were playing on a single F horn, a single Bb horn, or by the early 20th century a double horn. Dvorak seems to have thought some players were changing crooks, and so long as he heard the right notes coming out of the horn section all was good.
For more on the nineteenth century valved horn I have a lot of information over in Horn Articles Online, and I hope at some point in the future to publish a book on the topic.
UPDATE: A bit more of an answer, written in reply to a 2018 E-mail related to the above article:
On some level I believe Dvorak believed that he was helping the horn players by notating the music in different keys, much as you might use an A or a Bb clarinet. Strauss was clearly thinking this way with his use of the E and F crooks on the horn in for example Don Juan, that players would change crook.
But that being said, the low keys of D and C are close keys, they don’t sound that different. And in either case valved horns don’t work very well if you actually crook them down that far and pull all the slides. [For example the horn I’m playing in the photo]
My inclination then is that he was not really looking for any change of sound or color. He thought it might help the players to change keys. But almost certainly they from the first performances transposed the parts on valved horns, most likely in F.
