The use of the horn in the late orchestral works by Robert Schumann

Márton Kóródi

When I played a Schumann piece, Genoveva Overture, for the first time, I was wondering, because there were Ventilhorn and Waldhorn parts. I could not imagine what his idea was when he wrote for four horns, but still used two different kinds of the same instrument. Did he want to express something with this set-up? Beside this, I did not understand why he, and other romantic composers, use so much transposition when they had already a completely chromatic instrument. As I started to get to know and play the natural horn, it was getting clearer what his intention could have been. Why he used an ‘ancient’ instrument, though he could compose for four chromatic horns. This made me even more interested, and I also got more questions and hypotheses about the topic, for what I wanted to find an answer. In my research, I tried to get to know the use of the horn in the middle of the 19th century. I wanted to get familiar with the contemporaries’ imagination about the old and new instrument, and with the way how they used them. Then, with this knowledge, I analysed Schumann’s orchestral works, especially the horn parts, and tried to find out if the results are matching with the background research. My aim was too, show the horn players, that the romantic horn playing is not only about the ‘holy’ valve horn, but something more complex and colourful.

Introduction

Since I know about the natural horn I have been always interested in its time, how the contemporary composers and musicians treated the instrument. How did they deal with its imperfectionism? Why did they choose the horn instead of any other (brass) instrument and involve it in the relatively delicate and soft orchestral sound of the baroque and early classicism? Why and how did it become one of the most beloved instruments by the end of the classicism and how did it return ,after a couple of decades of fighting with the old and new methods, in the Hochromantik as the most versatile instrument of the orchestra?
Specially for the last question, we have to dig us into the most interesting era of the music history, which is the beginning of the 19th century when due to the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment the people, as well the musicians were looking for new solutions, new feelings, new ways to express their emotions. At the time, lots of instruments had a greater improvement and opened up the way to develop into the instrument that we know nowadays. For the brass instruments it was a big step to becoming a full member of the orchestra. Because they could play mostly in one specific key and only just a couple of notes, they had limited skills which made them unusable in some types of the music; but with the new invention, the valve, they achieved the fully chromatic state and could be involved into the music anytime. Despite this undoubtedly important development, the horn lost its characteristic and unique sound and some of the contemporaries, like the French school (Dauprat, Duvernoy, Domnich) and also German composers and conductors, were not completely glad to give up the charm of the instrument. Of course, we also find other opinions when the composers and hornists admired the new instrument and they did not understand why some musicians still did not accept the new invention. However, the new instrument made its way and the adventurous new generation of composers, as Berlioz, Halévy, Schumann, or Wagner recognised the advantages and possibilities of the valve horn and started to use them consciously. They made it very clear in their scores that they whether want to have the natural horn (cor de chasse/cor ordinaire, Waldhorn) or the valve horn (cor á pistons, Ventilhorn), this means that they trusted in the new ‘uncharacteristic’ instrument, they understood it, and could have used its advantages.
An important and adventurous time was when both kinds of horns were used at the same time. One pair of hornists played the natural horn, and the other pair of hornists played the valve horn. As I see it, it was the most brilliant solution to preserve the colourfulness and the special sounds of the natural horn, but involve the chromatic instrument. When I played the Genoveva Overture by Robert Schumann for the first time, I did not understand why the horn parts were divided into Ventilhorn and Waldhorn, why do natural horns transposed in impossible keys, like H-basso, since the valve horns play in the same key during the entire piece, even though they have a lot of chromaticism. Now, I know that at a certain time these two types of the instrument were used at the same time and Schumann was maybe the master of this mixture. But, then a new question came up; why did he not use only valve horns? He wrote two of the biggest works for the valve horn, the Konzertstück has four solo valve horns, and still uses the old version of the instrument. Did Schumann have any special assignment for the natural horns?

I tried to get closer to the answer from three aspects. Firstly, I have done research to get to know the improvement of the instrument, and to get to know the thoughts of the contemporaries and what they thought about the new possibilities. In connection with this, I also tried to find an answer to what kind of impact had the locations where Schumann lived and worked, and how the musicians around him forced him to try out the valve horn. During this time, I was looking for a date which can divide his career in the meaning of using the horn, and compare his pieces from before and after this date. Secondly, I chose a couple of excerpts, where the different personalities of the instruments can be shown and tried them out on the original instrumentation.

My aim with this research is to understand better why and how he used the two similar, but different horns, even though he could have composed only for the valve horn. How he mixed their skills and opportunities, what knowledge can we use, or what imaginations we should have in order to play more authentically on the modern instrument, and understand Schumann’s horn parts better

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Márton Kóródi - The use of the horn in the late orchestral works by Robert Schumann - 2023

Introduction