Some musicians think the older and simpler horn of Mozart, Gluck and Beethoven more poetic in quality of tone than the modern one.
“The timbre of the horn,” writes Lavignac, “may be utilized in many ways, but great skill is necessary to use it to advantage. It is heroic or rustic; savage or exquisitely poetic; and it is, perhaps, in the expression of tenderness and emotion that it best develops its mysterious qualities.”
The family of horns is complete; there are horns now in all keys. The music for them is generally written—whatever may be their key, or that of the Orchestra—without sharps or flats at the Clef.
In the Orchestra the horn is seldom played singly. A pair of horns, or four horns (two pairs), are usually employed.
It seems strange that such a primitive instrument should be capable of such poetic effects.
Wagner called for sixteen hunting-horns in the first act of Tannhäuser and made an effective use of the valve-horns in the Pilgrims’ Chorus in Tannhäuser. In the Siegfried Idyll he tried the effect of a shake on the horn. In the Flying Dutchman Overture he has four horns play in unison. Throughout the Meistersinger and the four dramas of the Nibelungen Ring, particularly in Siegfried, the horns have beautiful work to do. But Wagner outdid himself and everybody else in the music for his horns in the second act of Tristan. Here in the beautiful summer night King Mark is hunting; and we hear the faint far-away horns and their echoes ringing through the moonlight and mingling with the soft murmur of the Orchestra. Wagner produced this beautiful result by having six horns play behind the scenes and two in the Orchestra. It is a poetic, musical picture.
Since Wagner’s time six or eight horns often play in the Orchestra. Strauss uses them in a very peculiar way in Till Eulenspiegel, in which they play a four-part shake. They are also conspicuous in the Don Quixote Variations.
THE TRUMPET
As far back as the Eleventh Century there was a popular instrument called the claro, clarino, or clarion. It was a short, straight, cylindrical tube made of brass, with a cupped mouthpiece at one end and a bell at the other.
Towards the end of the Thirteenth Century this long tube was folded up and the sections were bound together by an ornamental cord. The word “clarion” was used to denote this new folded instrument and the word “trumpet” was kept for the old straight tube, which still continued in favor.