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From the earliest days of hunting horns, people have loved the sound of the french horn. Baroque Period composers brought these beautiful instruments in from the woods and fields to use them in their orchestras and to remind their audiences of the thrill of the chase and the adventure of the outdoors. Later composers used them to portray princely nobility and to be the musical voice of the hero.

The natural horn

Beginning as a simple loop of copper or brass tubing, the early horn had no valves. It was used outdoors during hunting trips to signal when prey was spotted. It was very similar to a bugle, in that it had a limited number of notes that could be played.

In those days, only a nobleman, such as a king, could own land. Most people simply worked someone else's land in return for a small share of the crops they could raise. If there was wild game in the forest, it belonged to the king.

Because only the king and his friends could hunt in the king's forest, the hunting horn was quickly associated with royalty. In fact, its image was often used in portraits to reinforce the idea that the person in the painting was a nobleman.

The hand horn

When the horn was brought into the orchestra, it wasn't very useful as a musical instrument. With so few notes to play, composers often limited it to playing the same types of "bugle calls" that were used during a hunt.

In the 1750s, musicians started adding extra lengths of coiled tubing to their horns so that they could play a few more notes. Shortly after that, it was discovered that one could use one's right hand inside the bell to raise or lower the natural pitches and achieve some of the "in-between" notes that the natural horn didn't have. This new method of handhorn playing led composers to write more interesting music for the french horn.

A brief history of the horn — part 2