Refer to Tom Hebert's DMA dissertation about the Court Orchestra in Dresden. Around 1718 works by Heinichen, Pisendel, et al. start employing notes outside the harmonic series beyond the F-natural and A natural. I don't know any players who can "lip" e-flats and a-flats in the staff into tune. I think we have to infer that at least in Dresden, an early form of hand-stopping was in use by this date. This would make sense, as far as Hampel being someone, then, who was expanding on a technique that was already being used in Dresden in the previous generation. The fact that Bach was living in the Saxon political and cultural region and had his music performed in Dresden, would lead one to the conclusion that this hand technique was known throughout Saxony and Thuringia. Telemann was the first choice for Bach's Leipzig position, surely he would have known about this practice.
Handel is probably another issue. One of the horn histories, I believe Morely-Pegge discusses a reference to the remarkable feature that a horn soloist gave a concert in the early 1750's and played in different keys on the same instrument. This may very well indicate that the crooked horn was a novelty in England at that date, meaning that the horns in use before then were fixed-pitch hunting horns. Note that Handel's parts differ harmonically from Bach's. Handel never writes the d and a (above the staff) as a sustained harmonic interval, but Bach does this all the time. This one feature out of many, leads me to believe that we should use the hand in Bach and play bell's up for Handel. I'd love to get a chance to just let the Handel parts fly with the out-of-tune partials adding "piquancy" rather than using the nodal venting, which is of course, completely un-historic. _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
