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.

Conclusion

With the background research I tried to get familiar with the use of the horn, both natural and valve in the middle of the 19th century, when many players were trained on both. They knew the advantages of both versions, and knew how to combine them, like Meifred. At the beginning of their career, they played on the natural horn, and changed to the valve horn only later, therefore they knew what is the charm of the instrument and what is THE character, which was admired by lots of musicians. Through the background research and also the examination of Schumann’s horn parts, I found out that the romantic horn sound is not one specific sound. I think it is the mixture of the natural and the valve horn that is the reason why Schumann used both instruments at the same time. He could also use only four valve horns, we know that the opportunity was there, otherwise the Konzertstück would not have been doable in Dresden; but he consciously used this set-up, so the romantic horn sound for him and possibly for the contemporaries is this mixture. I would never say to use the modern double or triple horn as a natural horn, but we can give more attention to this imagination of the sound, and we can point out better this important places where the Waldhorn did it naturally.

The other important conclusion I found during this work, I mentioned in the last part. It is the choice of the right side of the horn. Nowadays, especially in Europe the hornists regularly use the Bb horn and they ‘forget’ to make use of the F horn. I would like to refer to Henri Kling, Oscar Franz, Richard Strauss, and to the music that Schumann wrote down, that we should rediscover the F-side of our instrument and use it if we recognise that the composer also used different keyed horns far apart from each other. For the G, Ab, A, Bb alto, C alto horn one should use the B^b horn, for (D), C basso, B^b basso the F horn. For the tonalities in between, F, E, Eb one can choose which he prefers. Of course, if we take in account the high and low registers, then we can make more options, but I would suggest this statement as a starting point for choosing the right equipment on the modern instrument, at a modern performance.

I believe that these two points help us to make more beautiful and lively performances and stay as close to the original sound, and to the original intention as possible.

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