In a recent posting, Hans Pizka wrote:
Horns (or crooks) in Bb-basso (I owned just one from mid 19th cen. - a gigant
of a crook
4-times coiled)were NOT known before Don Giovanni...
Don Giovanni was premiered in 1787, so where does that leave the Gran
Partita for winds, presumably written in 1783 or 1784, and scored for
two pairs of horns in Eb and Bb? I've always performed it with groups
where the horns played the parts in Bb basso. I've never heard it played
with horns in Bb alto. I suppose a case could be made for Bb alto, but
my own feeling as a performer (I'm not a musicologist) is that Mozart
was exploring darker sonorities in the Gran Partita. For example, he
adds a pair of basset horns to deepen the clarinet sound and reinforces
the two bassoons with a string bass part (sometimes played by
contrabassoon). Why shouldn't he have done that for the horns, adding a
pair of horns in Bb basso, a fourth lower than the usual (in his wind
music) pair of Eb horns? I recall reading somewhere that the piece was
written for Mozart's friend, the clarinetist Anton Stadler, who
introduced him to the basset horn and basset clarinet (the original
clarinet concerto). Perhaps there were already musicians in Vienna
experimenting with larger crooked horns by then.
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I am can clarify this?
Richard in Seattle
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