Hans, we both like to take an intellectual wrestling. I happen to agree with you in your evaluations of when an assistant 1st horn is needed, unless you are dealing with madmen players like myself, who would play horn as well as bass trombone at the same concert, because the low strings could not get their intonation right in a certain piece in an undermanned orchestra.
But one composer, which we both hold in high respect, not only because of his extremely wise and musical usage of the horn, actually used sort of a reverse bumper horn. I cant find all of my Eulenburg scores, and I hardly would be able to read them anyway, so this is out of old memory. WAM is the shorthand term I often use. Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart would be an alternative in his mother tongue. As I remember the horn concerto scores, which are neither in D nor being the KV447, their orchestral winds are 2 oboes and 2 horns. I also seem to remember, that WAM at least in the opening tuttis lets the solo horn join the orchestral 1st horn. I dont know about the string body size of the premieres of the Eb concertos (Mozart never heard the D major concerto, which is not his first, but his last, completed by Süssmayer having a distinct non-WAM instrumentation error, where the 1st violins play in unisono with the solo horn something, which NEVER happens in the Eb concertos). But I know, that Don Juan was premiered in Praha with only 3 primos and only 4 secundos as for violins. I happen to doubt, that Leutgeb was backed by a much fatter string body, when he premiered any of the concertos. The orchestral horn parts of the said two concertos are manageable in respects of playability and stamina. Why did WAM let the soloist join the 1st Tuttist just to use a German terminology. (The father of a German friend was leader in the Karl-Marx-Stadt/Chemnitz orchestra, before he became a Tuttist in the Gewandhaus/Thomanerkirche/opera&ballet of Leipzig). For matters of noise levels? Hardly! I rather believe, that he wanted the scintillating fullness of two narrow bore horns playing almost in tune on their unisono lines. Today one can hear full sections playing totally in tune on large unisonos, so doubling is not necessary with the fat modern horns. But perfect unisonos were not a given matter as lately as in 1975. No names disclosed. My eyes are getting tired, so I will stop this rant. Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
