Just read it as a regular horn part, in alto clef ;-P -- I was taught
to use clefs to transpose on the fly...
Yep this is right. (I just looked it up...) I hate odd transpositions.
On Jan 18, 2009, at 12:41 PM, John Howell wrote:
At 6:59 PM +0100 1/18/09, Barbara Touburg wrote:
I'm working on some movements of Mendelssohn's
Midsummernightsdream. He uses Corni in E. I assume these are French
horns (normally in F). I've trouble setting up the transposition
correctly. Currently I have the interval as -4 and the key alter as
+4, but it must be wrong, because it sounds horrible. What might I
be doing wrong?
Yes, horns in E, a halfstep lower than today's F horn. But for
Mendelssohn, as for Beethoven and others in the early 19th century,
there was no "normal" F horn. The hand horns they used were crooked
into a variety of keys, of which F was only one. Mozart seems to
have favored the slightly richer sound of the Eb and D horn. And it
the wedding music for Midsummernight's Dream Mendelssohn use the
brighter G horn. (Not as bright, though, as the A horn in
Beethoven's 7th symphony!)
The rule of thumb is this: The E horn is a minor 6th lower than
concert pitch. Therefore it must be noted in a key a minor 6th
higher, and in notes a minor 6th higher. (I think! I have to re-
figure it out every time the question comes up, and I could well be
incorrect. But that's how you approach it.)
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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