fingers drawn together, forming a long, shallow cup, into the bell of the horn; the effect is similar to that produced in wood wind instruments, termed d’amore, by the pear-shaped bell with a narrow opening, i.e. a veiled mysterious quality, and, according to the arrangement of the hand and fingers (which cannot be taught theoretically, being inter-dependent on other acoustic conditions), a drop in pitch which enables the performer merely to correct the faulty intonation of difficult harmonics or to lower the pitch exactly a semitone or even a full tone by inserting the hand well up the bore of the bell. J. Fröhlich[1] gives drawings of the two principal positions of the hand in the horn. The same phenomenon may be observed in the flute by closing all the holes, so that the fundamental note of the pipe speaks, and then gradually bringing the palm of the hand nearer the open end of the flute. As a probable explanation may be offered the following suggestion. The partial closing of the opening of the bell removes the boundary of ambient air, which determines the ventral segment of the half wave-length some distance beyond the normal length; this boundary always lies beyond the end of the tube, thus accounting for the discrepancy between the theoretical length of the air-column and the practical length actually given to the tube.[2] Hampel is also said to have been the first to apply the sordini[3] (Fr. sourdine) or mute, already in use in the 17th century for the trumpet,[4] to the horn. The original mute did not affect the pitch of the instrument, but only the tone, and when properly constructed may be used with the valve horn to produce the mysterious veiled quality of the hand-stopped notes. No satisfactory scientific explanation of the modifications in the pitch effected by the partial obstruction of the bell, whether by the hand or by means of certain mechanical devices, has as yet been offered. D. J. Blaikley suggests that in cases when the effect of hand-stopping appears to be to raise the pitch of the notes of the harmonic series, the real result of any contraction of the bell mouth (as by the insertion of the hand) is always a flattening of pitch accompanied by the introduction of a distorted or inharmonic scale, of such a character that for instance, the c, d, e, or 8th, 9th and 10th notes of the original harmonic scale become not the c♯ d♯ e♯ of a fundamental raised a semitone, but D♭, E♭, and f due to the 9th, 10th and 11th notes of a disturbed or distorted scale having a fundamental lower than that of the normal horn.
With regard to the discovery of this method of obtaining a chromatic compass for the horn, which rendered the instrument very popular with composers, instrumentalists and the public, and procured for it a generally accredited position in the orchestra, the following is the sum of evidence at present available. In the Kgl. öffentliche Bibliothek, Dresden, is preserved, amongst the musical MSS., an autograph volume of 152 pages, entitled Lection pro Cornui, bearing the signature A. J. H[ampel], the name being filled in in pencil by a different hand. There is no introduction, no letterpress of any description belonging to the MS. method for the horn, nor is any book or pamphlet explaining the Inventionshorn or the method of hand-stopping by Hampel extant or known to have existed. He has apparently left no record of his accomplishment. A few typical extracts copied and selected from the original MS., courteously communicated by the director of the Royal Library, Hofrath, P. E. Richter (a practical musician and performer on horn and trumpet), do not prove conclusively that they were intended to be played on hand-stopped horns, with the exception, perhaps, of the A, 13th harmonic from C, which could not easily be obtained except by hand-stopping on the hand-horn. On the blank sheet preceding the exercises is an inscription in the hand of Moritz Fürstenau, former custodian of the Royal Private Musical Collection (incorporated with the public library in 1896): “Anton Joseph Hampel, by whom these exercises for the horn were written, was a celebrated horn-player, a member of the Orchestra of the Electoral Prince of Saxony. He invented the so-called Inventionshorn. Cf. Neues biog.-hist. Lexicon der Tonkünstler by Gerber, pt. i. col. 493; also Zur Gesch. der Musik u. des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, by M. Fürstenau, Bd. ii.” It will be seen that Fürstenau gives Gerber as his authority for the attribution of the invention to Hampel, although he searched the archives, to which he had free access, for material for his book.
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| p. 133, No. 21. |
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| p. 133, No. 22. |
The first possessor of the MS., Franz Schubert (1768–1824), musical director of the Italian opera in Dresden, wrote the following note in pencil on the last page of the cover: “Franz Schubert. The complete school of horn-playing by the Kgl. Polnischen u. Kursächs. Cammermusicus Anton Joseph Hampel, a celebrated virtuoso, invented by himself in 1762.” Judging from the standard of modern technique, there are many passages in the “Lection” which could not be played without artificially humouring the production of harmonics with the lips, and it is an open question to what extent this method of correcting intonation and of altering the pitch was practised in the 18th century. When, therefore, Franz Schubert states that the method was invented by Hampel, we may take this as indirectly confirming Gerber’s statements. Further confirmation is obtained from the text of a work on the horn written by Heinrich Domnich[5] (b. 1760), the son of a celebrated horn-player of Würtzburg contemporary with Hampel. Domnich junior settled eventually in Paris, where he was appointed first professor of the horn at the Conservatoire. According to him the mute (sourdine) of metal, wood or cardboard in the form of a hollow cone, having a hole in the base, was used to soften the tone of the horn without altering the pitch. But Hampel, substituting for this the pad of cotton wool used for a similar purpose with the oboe, found with surprise that its effect in the bell of the horn was to raise the pitch a semitone (see D. J. Blaikley’s explanation above). By this means, says Domnich, a diatonic and chromatic scale was obtained. Later Hampel substituted the hand for the pad. Domnich duly ascribes to Hampel the credit of the Inventionshorn, but erroneously states that it was Haltenhoff of Hanau who made the first instrument. Domnich further explains that Hampel, who had not practised the bouché notes in his youth, only made use of them in slow music, and that the credit of making practical use of the discovery was due to his pupil Giovanni Punto (Joh. Stich) the celebrated horn virtuoso, who was a friend of Domnich’s.
It may be well to draw attention to the fact that hand-stopping was not possible so long as the tube of horn was folded in a circle wide enough to be worn round the body. The reduction of the diameter of the orchestral horn in order to allow the performer to hold the instrument in front of him, thus bringing the bell in front of the right arm in a convenient position for hand-stopping, must have preceded the discovery of hand-stopping. In the absence of contrary evidence we may suppose that the change was effected for the more convenient arrangement and manipulation of the slides or Inventions. So radical a change in the compass of the horn could not occur and be adopted generally without leaving its mark on the horn music of the period; this change does not occur, as far as we know, before the last decades of the 18th century. The rapid acceptance in other countries of Hampel’s discovery of hand-stopping is evidenced by a passage from a little English work on music, published in London in 1772 but bearing at the end of the preface the date June 1766:[6] “Some eminent Proficients have been so dexterous as very nearly to perform all the defective notes of the scale on the Horn by management of Breath and by a little stopping the bell with their hands.”
Hampel’s success gave a general impetus to the inventive faculty of musical instrument makers in Europe. At first the result was negative. Kölbel’s attempt must, however, be mentioned, if only to correct a misconception. Kölbel, a Bohemian horn virtuoso at the imperial Russian court from 1754, spent many years in vain endeavours to improve his instrument. At last, in 1760, he applied keys to the horn or the bugle, calling it Klappenhorn (the bugle is known in Germany as Signal or Buglehorn), Kölbel’s experiment did not become widely known or adopted during his lifetime, but Anton Weidinger, court trumpeter at Vienna, made a keyed trumpet[7] in 1801, which attracted attention in musical circles and gave a fresh impetus in experimenting with keys upon brass instruments. In 1813 Joseph Weidinger, the twelve-year-old son of the above, gave a concert in Vienna on the Klappenwaldhorn[8] (or keyed French horn), about which little seems to be known. Victor Mahillon[9] describes such an instrument, but ascribes the invention to Kölbel; there was but one key placed on the bell, which on being opened had the effect of raising the pitch of the instrument a whole tone. By alternately using the harmonic open notes on the normal length of the tube, and then by the action of the key shortening the air column, the following diatonic scale was obtained in the third octave:
- ↑ Vollständige theoretisch-praktische Musikschule (Bonn, 1811), pt. iii. p. 7.
- ↑ See Victor Mahillon, “Le Cor,” p. 28; Chladni, op. cit. p. 87.
- ↑ See Fröhlich, op. cit. 7; and Gerber, Lexikon (ed. 1812), p. 493; “Le Cor,” pp. 34 and 53.
- ↑ See Praetorius and Mersenne, op. cit.; the latter gives an illustration of the trumpet mute.
- ↑ Methode de premier et de second cor (Paris, c. 1807). The passage in question was discovered and courteously communicated by Hofrat P. E. Richter of the Royal Library, Dresden. There is no copy of Domnich’s work in the British Museum.
- ↑ See William Tans’ur Senior, op. et loc. cit.
- ↑ See Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Leipzig), Nov. 1802, p. 158, and Jan. 1803, p. 245; and E. Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien (Vienna, 1869), p. 119.
- ↑ See Allgem. mus. Ztg., 1815, p. 844.
- ↑ “Le Cor,” pp. 34-35.
