It says that Franz had to
re-write the
original long call because it was unplayable and that is what we have
today ...
... but then again, who says what Hans said is the truth?
I'd be happy to, LT: Hans Pizka told you the truth.
Wagner certainly knew the Strauss horn sound thoroughly after hearing
the latter play the rehearsals and world premieres of both Tristan and
Meistersinger. But by the time Rheingold and Walkuere were baptized in
Munich, Wagner was skulking at Tribschen (Triebschen) in his second
period of Swiss exile. Hans Richter, a hornist in Vienna for
four years before being engaged by Wagner as copyist, served as
Wagner's consultant on brass instruments, including those that made
their debut in the Ring orchestra like bass trumpet and Wagner tubas.
Richter also brought his Viennese F horn to Tribschen -- a contrast to
Franz Strauss, who made the switch to the shorter B flat instrument in
1867 and remained with it until the end of his career. Cosima Wagner
later recalled a Meistersinger "rehearsal where Strauss suddenly
refused to play his part, and Richter resolutely declared from the
stage that he would perform it. When they took him Strauss' horn he
said disdainfully, 'I do not play post horn.' His own instrument was
brought, which he took lovingly and played to Buelow's complete
satisfaction." There are conflicting versions of this story, but it
serves to demonstrate the differences in opinion that prevailed about
the two instruments.
Since the Siegfried Call is the epitome of F horn writing (ending on a
screaming high F), it was the special province of great F horn players
from the very beginning. Wagner wrote Ludwig II of waking up to the
Call on the morning of his fifty-sixth birthday: "That can only be
Richter -- no one else knows the motif!" (NB; "no one else" would
include Franz Strauss). Hans Pizka has already mentioned Josef
Schantl's connection with the Call, and Gustav Leinhos of Meiningen
played its Bayreuth premiere on the F horn. Even after
Wagner's death this preference was respected: the revival of the Ring
at the Festspiel twenty-three years later (under Richter's baton)
showcased
the artistry of the Vienna Philharmonic's Emil Wipperich, who continued
to play the Call there through 1904.
Wagner and Strauss were inveterate enemies. And though hundreds of
contemporary
accounts and reviews from a wide number of sources testify that Franz
Joseph Strauss was a true poet of the horn (Paul Marsop contended
that there
were only two: Franz Strauss . . . and Joseph Eichendorff), the
consciously
primitive, elemental Siegfriedruf was composed for the
Viennese F horn.
But there's no need to take the above on faith. The Wagner-Strauss
relationship is featured in a Horn Call article of Feb. 1999, and
you'll find many original German sources among the 139 footnotes.
Bill Melton
Hauset (B) / Sinfonie Orchester Aachen (D)
_______________________________________________
post: horn@music.memphis.edu
unsubscribe or set options at
http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
