There is a simple answer: The valve horn technique playing chromatically using the valves had not found common use that time 1850, so Wagner used some kind of mixed technique writing for the horns. The horn players used different crooks (on the front end of the horn) plus the valves, but they used the valves just to switch from one tonality to the other quickly. And they still used their right hand in the bell for certain semitones. It is a quick change from G to E, if the G crook is used first & the first two valves or the 3rd valve is used to switch the horn to E tonality. It would work here. G horn together with 1st & 3rd valve makes D-horn etc., but the loud passage on plain D-horn ???? Would sound terrible stuffy & weak. -
These were my first thoughts. But it is different. It has more to do with Wagners score-writing & readability of score & parts. Horn players were used to read clean parts, parts with just a few accidentals. When Wagner switches from one chord to the next he just changed the transposition & kept the parts clean for easy reading. If you read the first three pages of the score (3rd act prelude) you will find it out by yourself. These are conclusions from playing this opera many, many times during 40 years. But it is still not a proof evidence, why Wagner did so, but it remains assumption. Lewy had influenced Wagner. And aren´t we doing warm-up exercises in a similar way ? On fixed valve positions ? The arpeggios ? I prefer this kind of writings as it keeps the part clean. You find the spots easily. You find the "altered" notes quickly. If one plays on the F-side mostly, the task is quite easy, but the notorious Bb-players get in trouble with the fingerings, special fingering the "sharp" tonalities E & D, but they might do easier on the "flat" tonalities like A-flat. ============================================================ ============================================================ == -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Luke Zyla Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 3:43 AM To: Horn List Subject: [Hornlist] Lohengrin I am sitting here practicing the original notation part to the Introduction to Act III of the Opera Lohengrin. It starts in G horn in the first measure and switches to E horn on the third beat of measure 2. Later to G, back to E, then D and later A-flat horn. I am wondering if the rest of the opera has that many rapid changes? Why would it be written so? Just curious, Luke Zyla, 2nd horn West Virginia Symphony Orchestra www.wvsymphony.org _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/hans%40pizka. de _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
