BBC SCOTTISH play Ives, Bartok and Dvorak. Friday June 22nd at 1930

[Guest]

Live from Glasgow City Hall

Ives - Three Places in New England
Bartok - Violin concerto No 2
INTERVAL
Dvorak - Symphony Nº 9 in E minor (from the New World)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Jennifer Koh (violin)
Matthias Pintscher (conductor).

Not too keen on Ives, myself, but the Bartok violin concerto is a splendid piece and, as a horn player, how could I not listen to a symphony which (in the last movement) is a buttocks-clencher for any Principal Horn?

Please join me next Friday on Radio 3. I have friends in that orchestra.

HS

[HighlandDougie]

So the programme should really read

Ives - Three Places in New England
Bartok - Violin concerto No 2
INTERVAL
Dvorak - Symphony Nº 9 in E minor (the Buttock Clencher or in its home country Hýždě Držitel)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Jennifer Koh (violin)
Matthias Pintscher (conductor).

well HS's retitling of the NW made me laugh anyway

[PJPJ]

Thank you!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ooh! Love the Ives; not as keen on the Dvorak (I prefer nos 5-8) but Pintscher should bring out the rhythms!

Incidentally, HS; I've often wondered (too much free time on my hands!): why does Dvorak use 2 Horns in E and 2 in C? It's "obvious" (or is it?) from the low F# in the C Horn's first entry that these aren't "natural" Horns, but, if they're all chromatic instruments, why "in" E & C? Do chromatic Horns have "crooks" (avoiding the obvious jokes!) and, if so, how do these affect the sound they make?

(Or did Tony just blunder here?)

Best Wishes.

[Hornspieler]

Ooh! Love the Ives; not as keen on the Dvorak (I prefer nos 5-8) but Pintscher should bring out the rhythms!

I confess I don't know Nº 5, but I love all of the last 4.

Incidentally, HS; I've often wondered (too much free time on my hands!): why does Dvorak use 2 Horns in E and 2 in C? It's "obvious" (or is it?) from the low F# in the C Horn's first entry that these aren't "natural" Horns, but, if they're all chromatic instruments, why "in" E & C? Do chromatic Horns have "crooks" (avoiding the obvious jokes!) and, if so, how do these affect the sound they make?

(Or did Tony just blunder here?).

Not an easy question to answer, FHG. Perhaps the knowledgable Waldhorn could do better than me on historical facts, but I'll try my best.

The practice of writing for 2 pairs of horns goes back to the time of Mozart and his contempories and arose because the third
(and 7th) note of a minor scale could not be produced on the harmonics of a valveless horn as an "open" note in a minor key.
So the answer was to write for two horns in the key of the work and an additional pair of horns pitched in the relative major key.
A good example is Mozart's "little G minor symphony" which has 2 G horns and 2 B flat horn.
.

Those parts would be shown on the score as Horns 1 & 2 in G and Horns 1 & 2 in B flat. Even after the advent of valved (or keyed) instruments, that tradition persisted. Brahms for instance wrote many of his most important (and usually the higher) of his horns parts for the third horn - the two piano concertos being a good example.
So one would have thought it more likely that Dvorak would have scored his 2 pairs for E and G, but instead, he chose C for the second pair.
I have no idea why, because the 3rd horn part (in E) opens the first movement with a phrase which includes that minor third!

OK, I've confused you enough, but I must tell you of a great benefit to horn players today:

Because of the early practice of writing 1st and 2nd in "x" and 1st and 2nd in "y", 3rd horn players in the modern symphony orchestra are classed as principal players (and 4th horns as sub-principals) and receive the appropriate remuneration.

Confusing for the conductor and lay score reader maybe, but it's an ill wind ... etc. **

HS

**BTW Not to be confused with the oboe, which was once defined as "an ill woodwind which nobody blows any good.

[MrGongGong]

Dvorak - Symphony Nº 9 in E minor (from the New World)

now there's another horn solo I spectacularly failed to deliver in the youth orchestra (along with the end of Beethoven 6)
still brings me out in a cold sweat to this day !!!

[Hornspieler]

now there's another horn solo I spectacularly failed to deliver in the youth orchestra (along with the end of Beethoven 6)
still brings me out in a cold sweat to this day !!!

I once had to play that solo on a cold winter's day. It went fine in the rehearsal, but as I stepped out into the freezing cold north wind, my top lip split wide open!

I knew I could probably not get that high note in the performance, so I simply left it out.

After the concert, two people came up to me and congratulated me on that solo. One of the actually said "... you played that top note so quietly that I could barely hear it."

Not surprising and it goes to confirm what one of my early mentors, the late Francis Bradley*, said to me about how to survive in the profession:
" ... it's not what you play that counts, it's knowing what you can afford to leave out, which will enable you to survive in this business."

HS

* Francis Bradley, son of the great Adolf Borsdoff, was still playing first horn with the Sadlers Wells Orchestra in his early seventies.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HS (#5)

[Serial_Apologist]

I once had to play that solo on a cold winter's day. It went fine in the rehearsal, but as I stepped out into the freezing cold north wind, my top lip split wide open!

I knew I could probably not get that high note in the performance, so I simply left it out.

After the concert, two people came up to me and congratulated me on that solo. One of the actually said "... you played that top note so quietly that I could barely hear it."

Not surprising and it goes to confirm what one of my early mentors, the late Francis Bradley*, said to me about how to survive in the profession:
" ... it's not what you play that counts, it's knowing what you can afford to leave out, which will enable you to survive in this business."

HS

* Francis Bradley, son of the great Adolf Borsdoff, was still playing first horn with the Sadlers Wells Orchestra in his early seventies.

Which reminds me of a story told to me by the jazz trumpet player Henry Lowther.

In the mid-'60s, Henry spent two years touring with the pop group Manfred Mann, along with a saxophone player called Lyn Dobson. One place was on the east coast - might have been Skegness. As the band unpacked the equipment, Lyn opened his saxophone case, and to his horror discovered that he has forgotten to pack any reeds. In those days, Henry went on to explain, the PA was so loud that the front line would drown out any sound from backing musicians - who, in any case, were never called on to solo. And so Lyn, applying a bit of ingenuity to the situation, rolled up a bit of newspaper, inserted it into the saxophone mouthpiece to simulate a reed, and proceeded to mime the entire gig, without anyone noticing!

S-A

[Roehre]

HS (#5)

Seconded

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'd recommend anyone "not keen" on Ives to give the Three Places in New England a go. The last "place" (The Housatonic at Stockbridge) is a real gem of a piece. It refers to the riverside where Ives proposed to his wife (called Harmony Twitchell, whose godfather was Samuel Clemens): there's a glorious melody for Horn and 'celli, over which the other strings provide a mist of swirling harmonies whilst the piano captures the glint of sunlight reflected off the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4grS6KPGPA4

[Pabmusic]

Incidentally, HS; I've often wondered (too much free time on my hands!): why does Dvorak use 2 Horns in E and 2 in C? It's "obvious" (or is it?) from the low F# in the C Horn's first entry that these aren't "natural" Horns, but, if they're all chromatic instruments, why "in" E & C? Do chromatic Horns have "crooks" (avoiding the obvious jokes!) and, if so, how do these affect the sound they make?

(Or did Tony just blunder here?)

Best Wishes.

...Not an easy question to answer, FHG. Perhaps the knowledgable Waldhorn could do better than me on historical facts, but I'll try my best.
...one would have thought it more likely that Dvorak would have scored his 2 pairs for E and G, but instead, he chose C for the second pair.
I have no idea why, because the 3rd horn part (in E) opens the first movement with a phrase which includes that minor third!

Can I contribute, although I'm not a horn player? There was never a clean change from natural horns to valve/piston horns. Composers had their own preferences. Wagner, for instance, wrote for 2 Ventilhörner (valves) and 2 Waldhörner (natural) in Tannhäuser, and he was by no means alone. He didn't do that for long, because he adopted valve horns quite quickly. But he always wrote for them as if they were crooked! Certainly from Löhengrin onwards he writes passages where horns are marked 'in D' for a few bars, then 'in C' for a few, and 'in E' for a few more - and yet gives no time for changing crooks. That's because the parts are all for valve horns, but written in the old way, as if for natural ones, with the expectation of transpositions instead of crooks. I imagine the thinking was that the old terminology would be more familiar, even though production of the notes would be different. Tchaikovsky took the F transposition for granted (as did many Russians) and it gradually became common everywhere, though Richard Strauss wrote as if for crooks (like Wagner did) till the end of hid life.

This is why horn players are such good transposers - it's an important part of the technique.

As to the 'pairs of horns', this was very common. Elgar writes for pairs in F and B-flat basso in Froissart (1890) though he soon abandoned the practice in favour of F horns. The gradual settling of the orchestral horn as an instrument in either F or B-flat (the difference of course is in where their ranges lie) helped to standardise things, with the modern(ish) 'double' horn completing the standardisation. This has two sets of plumbing (F and B-flat) in the same instrument, controlled by a valve, that allows a really impressive range.

As for Dvorak in the New World, I think he's being Wagnerian. He swaps the second pair between C and E, though requiring by no means as awkward transpositions as Wagner (or Strauss!). He does the same thing - only more often - with the trumpets, which swap between E, C and E-flat. Yet it's an 1893 work - they're not meant at all to be natural trumpets with crooks. It leads to this famous controversy over the trumpets at figure 4 in the last movement. Are they in E or C? It's not clear; the Simrock score from 1894 gives them in E, the Supraphon score from 1971 (the only other performance material) gives them in C. Erich Kleiber used to insist on the latter (which gives rhythmic concert Gs and Ds) but the older reading gives Bs and F-sharps, which is certainly more arresting. The autograph score is of no help, because it was well within Dvorak's capability to forget what instrument he was writing for.

[Hornspieler]

Can I contribute, although I'm not a horn player? There was never a clean change from natural horns to valve/piston horns. Composers had their own preferences. Wagner, for instance, wrote for 2 Ventilhörner (valves) and 2 Waldhörner (natural) in Tannhäuser, and he was by no means alone. He didn't do that for long, because he adopted valve horns quite quickly. But he always wrote for them as if they were crooked! Certainly from Löhengrin onwards he writes passages where horns are marked 'in D' for a few bars, then 'in C' for a few, and 'in E' for a few more - and yet gives no time for changing crooks. That's because the parts are all for valve horns, but written in the old way, as if for natural ones, with the expectation of transpositions instead of crooks. Tchaikovsky took the F transposition for granted (as did many Russians) and it gradually became common everywhere, though Richard Strauss wrote as if for crooks (like Wagner did) till the end of his life.

This is why horn players are such good transposers - it's an important part of the technique.

As to the 'pairs of horns', this was very common. Elgar writes for pairs in F and B-flat basso in Froissart (1890) though he soon abandoned the practice in favour of F horns. The gradual settling of the orchestral horn as an instrument in either F or B-flat (the difference of course is in where their ranges lie) helped to standardise things, with the modern(ish) 'double' horn completing the standardisation. This has two sets of plumbing (F and B-flat) in the same instrument, controlled by a valve, that allows a really impressive range.

As for Dvorak in the New World, I think he's being Wagnerian. He swaps the second pair between C and E, though requiring by no means as awkward transpositions as Wagner (or Strauss!). He does the same thing - only more often - with the trumpets, which swap between E, C and E-flat. Yet it's an 1893 work - they're not meant to be natural trumpets with crooks. It leads to this famous controversy over the trumpets at figure 4 in the last movement. Are they in E or C? It's not clear; the Simrock score from 1894 gives them in E, the Supraphon score from 1971 (the only other performance material) gives them in C. Erich Kleiber used to insist on the latter (which gives rhythmic concert Gs and Ds) but the older reading gives Bs and F-sharps, which is certainly more arresting. The autograph score is of no help, because it was well within Dvorak's capability to forget what instrument he was writing for.

Many thanks for that Pabmusic. Although we are wandering away from the subject of this thread, I think most message boarders would be interested to learn a little more about this subject:

When I started to learn the horn at school, I could not read music, so my music master, the late Anthony Brown, taught me to read music but would not allow me to i) write in the fingerings under the notes or ii) rewrite the music for horn in F. (I had a french horn with an F crook)

He also taught me that transposition is not as difficult as it may appear, and he put it like this:
"A pianist reads notes written in treble clef and bass clef at the same time without thinking about it. If he also plays the cello, he will read alto clef and tenor clef with equal ease. That's four different clefs. Add three more imaginery clefs and the appropriate number of sharps and flats and you can identify where middle C lies on the stave, for instance, and go from there."

That is how I learnt to transpose. When I travelled to the RAM to compete for my scholarship, the sight reading I was given was Wagners Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin. The first three bars are for Horn in G. Bar 4 immediatelyy changes into Horn in E; so what appears on the manuscript as an interval of a third is, in fact, an interval of a perfect fifth. I sailed straight through that (it later changes to horn in D for the big tune) and I'm sure that was why I was awarded this Open Scholarship against some pretty tough opposition.

People tend to admire horn players for their transposing skills, but they don't realise that (as you have pointed out) trumpet players have the same task as we do. Okay so I can transpose with ease, but the idea of sight reading (and playing) music at the speed required of a woodwind player or a violinist would be completely beyond me. We all have our individual problems, which is why I assure people that playing the horn is no more difficult than playing any other orchestral instrument. (But we still like to preserve the myth, to cover our tracks!)

Why are horn parts written for horn in F? Because that keeps the normal compass of a horn on the stave and not climbing around on ledger lines.

Let the conductors do a bit of transposition when reading the score. At least the baton doesn't (or shouldn't) make a noise.

So, back to City Hall, Glasgow on June 22nd.

Hornspieler

[Ariosto]

If you lot go on talking like this you might persaude me to listen to some orchestral musak again ... (Very interesting stuff!)

I knew that about the third horn but had forgotten. Couldn't get the 3rd horn to buy me a drink though, even though they were overpaid!!

[Tony Halstead]

Couldn't get the 3rd horn to buy me a drink though, even though they were overpaid!

No horn player is 'overpaid'...!