Why is the French Horn ‘French’?

Few musical instruments receive such universal adoration or are blessed with such arresting repertoire as the French Horn. Any why wouldn’t you love the horn? With its unique timbre which somehow manages to be at once heroic and achingly romantic, it is no surprise that the horn has found its niche providing the accompaniment to superheroes, adventurers and far off worlds on both the silver screen and concert hall.

The horn family is one of the oldest in the world. It is likely that animal horns have been used as musical instruments in the earliest human societies. Horns are naturally hollow, providing a perfect chamber to resonate and create a rich round sound. Animal horn is also a very malleable material, which can be shaped after immersing it in boiling water. Cutting off the pointed end of the animal horn and vibrating your lips against the resulting hole creates a very loud, but not massively tuneful sound.

Over time, metal mouthpieces were added to the end of animal horns to allow for a cleaner sound and ease in changing pitch. Horns eventually started to be made of metal, allowing for a greater range of dynamics (how loud or quiet an instrument is) and timbre. The oldest of these metal horns is the Scandinavian lur, which was found in a Danish bog.

But none of this answers the key question of why we call the orchestral horn the “French horn” in English. Although there are several reasons, I – and many other horn players – consider the term to be a misnomer.

 

The modern orchestral horn is descended from the cor de chase (“hunting horn”) in around 1650. This was a circular hunting horn, designed to be played on horseback, which could play a harmonic series of notes by adjusting the tension in the embouchure (lip position) and pressure of the air passed through the instrument. However, the notes which could be played on each horn depended on the length of the tubing.

 

At this point (the late seventeenth century) France dominated the manufacturing of hunting horns, so they became known in England as “French horns”.

 

It should be noted that the word “trompe de chasse” refers to the same instrument, since the distinction

The primary flaw with the cor de chasse is that it restricts the number of notes which can be played to those within the harmonic series. Notes a semitone higher than a note in the harmonic series can be played by ramming your hand into the bell (flared end) – known as “hand-stopping” – which not only raises the pitch of a note but changes its timbre (tone colour). This restricted the potential for the instrument’s use in orchestras

 

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, German smiths began to develop crooks to allow the horn to play in different keys (and thus play different notes) by changing the length of the pipe. This broadened the potential of the instrument in orchestras, as the composer was less restricted in the number of notes the horn could play.

 

This German adaption of the cor de chasse is now referred to as the “natural horn” in order to distinguish it from the modern horn with valves. Even though German horns quickly replaced the rigid French horn in orchestras, the English nomenclature did not change as a result.

Despite the new versatility of the instrument, horn repertoire was still restricted by the harmonic series of the instrument. Horns usually played an accompanying role in orchestras, mostly used as part of the overall musical texture with occasional horn call. The few pieces which showcased the horn (most famously Mozart’s 4th horn concerto) showed that the instrument was capable of playing a melody.

 

It was not until the development of valves for German horns in the nineteenth century that the true potential of the horn was unlocked. The newly improved horn took the form of a German horn with the F crook inserted as a framework since it was easy to reach both the low an high extremes of the instrument’s range with many harmonics in-between. Pressing down a leaver turns a valve and lengthens the amount of pipe that air will travel through, reducing the pitch of the resulting note.

 

Laters, another set of slides were added to the instrument – the equivalent of gluing a horn in B flat to the horn in F. Many of the harmonic intervals in the horn in B flat are further apart than the horn in F, so many players feel more secure playing a horn in Bb. Since the length of a horn in Bb is shorter than a horn in F, higher notes are easier to reach, whereas the horn in F can more easily reach the lowest notes in the range. Many horn players switch between both sets of tubing while playing according to personal preference, making which is a notoriously temperamental instrument a little more tame.

 

And thus the modern orchestral horn was born.

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