CHAPTER 3-"THE HORN’S TRUE CHARACTERISTICS"

Brahms wrote his Horn Trio for the natural horn, not for the valve horn. This was a striking choice, as Brahms composed the piece at a time when the valve horn had been broadly accepted throughout Germany and Austria. In order to understand this decision and its implications, we need to investigate the history of the valve and its struggle for acceptance. We will then examine Brahms’ relationship to the horn, and his reasons for choosing the valveless instrument for the Horn Trio.

The invention of the valve at the beginning of the nineteenth century was to revolutionize brass playing. The first extant mention of the valve occurs in a letter dated December 6, 1814. Heinrich Stölzel, one of the two early inventors of the valve, wrote to King Frederick William III of Prussia, and asked him to try using the valve in the King’s bands.

On May 3, 1815, the following announcement, heralding the new invention, was published in the Leipzig periodical Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. It was written by Gottlob Benedict Bierey, the music director of the theater at Breslauthat.

On November 26, 1817, there appeared in the same publication the following review of the valve, written by the music director and organist Friedrich Schneider.

Five months after this review, on April 6, 1818, Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blühmel, the other early valve pioneer, applied in Berlin for a joint patent for the valve. They received it six days later.

The valve caused quite a controversy, and in this controversy are the roots of Brahms’ decision to write the Horn Trio for natural horn. In order better to understand this, we shall examine what the valve was intended to do, what the valve actually did, and how musicians felt about it. We shall then turn to how various composers, including Brahms, reacted to the valve.

The valve was initially intended to enable the hornist merely to change the key of the horn instantaneously, without his needing to change crooks. The horn player would depress a valve combination in order to choose a key for the instrument, and would use hand horn technique as he always had. The horn player would no longer need time between key changes, and perhaps more importantly, he would no longer have to carry around a heavy, awkward box filled with crooks.

As the above announcements show, it soon became clear that the valve made it possible to forego hand horn technique entirely. Different valve combinations could choose different harmonic series, and the overlapping of these series allowed for a complete chromatic scale without any hand stopping. By using valves in this manner, a horn player could eliminate the unevenness of tone that was inherent to hand horn technique and that many felt to be a severe impediment.

Despite the excitement about the new invention, it took nearly a century for the valve to become completely accepted. There were several reasons for this. For one thing, horn players were naturally reluctant to give up a tradition they had spent their lives learning in order to start over with a completely new technique. In addition, there were serious mechanical problems with the early valves. They leaked air, and compressed and bent the air flow in ways that caused poor intonation and poor tone quality. By the 1830’s, however, these mechanical problems had essentially been solved.

The largest and longest lasting obstacle to the valve’s acceptance was the feeling among many musicians that the new mechanism had compromised the true sound of the horn. These musicians felt that the sound that had resulted from hand horn technique was not merely sufferable, but actually desirable. Hand horn players, in order to minimize the difference between stopped and open notes on the natural horn, had kept the open tones quite covered. This resulted in a very dark, mysterious sound, which, combined with the even darker color of the stopped tones, was what many considered to be the true sound of the instrument. With the use of valves, the horn lost the stopped notes and the need for a covered sound. Some early valve horn players went so far as to completely remove their right hand from the bell, drastically changing the tone color of the horn.

Another way that the valve changed the horn’s sound had to do with crooks. Different crooks have different tone qualities, with the higher (shorter) crooks having a much brighter, more brilliant sound than the lower (longer) crooks. The natural horn was thus able to impart to each key its own color. The valve horn rendered unnecessary the different crooks with their different colors, and many felt this to be a change for the worse.

The conductor and composer Karl Gottleib Reissiger voiced the opposition to the new instrument particularly well. In 1837, more than twenty years after the valve’s invention, he wrote an article for the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in which he expressed his distaste for the valve horn. His greatest concern was with the change in the sound of the instrument. He wrote

Composers reacted to the change in horn technique in a variety of ways. Some, like Weber, flatly rejected the valve-horn. He referred to the new instruments disparagingly as the "neuen Maschinenhörner" - the "new machine-horns." Most composers, however, were not so completely dismissive. Before turning to Brahms’ relationship to the horn, we shall briefly examine the crucial influences of Schubert, Schumann, and Wagner on the acceptance of the valve horn.

The first piece that was written by a major composer specifically for the valve horn was probably Franz Schubert’s 1828 composition Auf dem Strom for piano, voice, and valve horn. Schubert wrote the horn part for Joseph Rudolphe Lewy, one of the first important valve horn players, with whom Schubert premiered the piece. Although Schubert did take advantage of the valve instrument by writing some pitches that were very difficult if not impossible on natural horn, the horn part remains in the hand horn idiom, relying heavily on the harmonic series and nearby pitches.

It was Robert Schumann who was the first major composer to make a substantial break with hand horn tradition, writing chromatically for the instrument throughout its range. In 1849 he wrote two wonderful pieces for the valve horn. In February he composed in three days the Adagio and Allegro for horn and piano, which he described to Clara in a letter, writing "the piece is splendid, fresh and passionate, so that I like it!" On April 10 he wrote to Ferdinand Hiller that "...recently I’ve written a Concertpiece for four horns with orchestral accompaniment that strikes me as one of my best pieces." These two pieces were breakthroughs for valve horn writing. The valve horn now came into its own as an instrument that was more than just a technically advanced natural horn. It was a different instrument with a different technique for which one could write in a completely different style.

Richard Wagner approached the valve horn in a variety of ways. At first, Wagner appreciated the technical advances of the valve horn, but felt that the new instrument compromised the true horn sound. In his early operas Rienzi (1840) and Flying Dutchman (1841), Wagner wrote for two valve horns and two natural horns, in an attempt to have the best of both worlds.

In 1848, Wagner tried a new approach in Lohengrin. While composing this work, Wagner probably worked in close conjunction with the valve hornist Lewy (the same one for whom Schubert wrote Auf dem Strom) who played at the Dresden Opera. Wagner wrote his horn parts using the same technique that Lewy had used for twelve studies he had written for valve horn. Wagner would indicate a key, and thus a valve combination, for a passage, and have the hornist use hand horn technique. Sometimes he would go so far as to indicate a different key every few measures, as in the introduction to the third act. This technique caused all sorts of confusion for the horn player, and was abandoned.

In 1859, with Tristan und Isolde, Wagner decided to leave more up to the hornist. In the introduction to the opera, he wrote about his decision, and about what he thought of the difference between natural and valve horn.

Brahms was even more emphatic than Wagner about retaining what he felt were the "true characteristics" of the horn. Brahms referred to the valve horn disparagingly as the "Blechbratsche"- the "brass viola." Although Brahms probably conceived most or all of his orchestral horn parts for the natural horn, he knew that they would often, if not always, be played on valve horn. In his first symphony and in the Academic Festival Overture, Brahms, like Wagner, indicated certain notes which he insisted be stopped, even if the parts were played on valve horns.

Part of the reason why Brahms felt so strongly about retaining the "true characteristics" of the horn was probably that, as a child, he had studied the instrument with his father. In addition to working as a double bass player, Jakob Brahms was a professional horn player with the Hamburg Bürgerwehr (town militia) for 36 years, from 1831 to 1867. The young Johannes thus grew up in the presence of the Waldhorn and probably strongly associated it with his childhood. This might explain why the first piece he wrote after his mother’s death was one for Waldhorn just as, after his father’s death in 1872, Brahms wrote ten etudes for Waldhorn that he dedicated "to the memory of my father."

Brahms’ appreciation of the natural horn was reinforced by his work as a performer. When Brahms was working in the court at Detmold as pianist and choir director in the late 1850’s, he had the opportunity to work with the excellent natural horn player August Cordes, "whose rich, mellow tone drew from Brahms enthusiastic expressions of admiration." Together, they played the piano and wind quintets of Beethoven and Mozart, and Beethoven’s Horn Sonata.

There is no question that Brahms intended the Horn Trio to be played on natural horn, despite the fact that the valve horn had been widely accepted in Germany and Austria by 1865. In both the 1866 and 1891 editions of the piece, Brahms specified "Waldhorn." In addition, every time Brahms performed the piece he did so with a natural horn player.

In one case in particular, Brahms’ choice of a horn player for a performance of the Horn Trio demonstrates his insistence on using the natural horn. When Brahms performed the piece in Vienna on December 29, 1867, he played it with Wilhelm Kleinecke, a natural horn player who was second horn in the Vienna Opera and a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory. The principal horn player in the Opera, whom Brahms did not choose for the performance, was Richard Lewy (the nephew of Joseph Rudolph Lewy, the hornist of Auf dem Strom and Lohengrin). Lewy, although more famous and esteemed than Kleinecke, played only the valve horn. It seems that the ability to play the piece on natural horn was more important to Brahms than the general reputation of the player.

Brahms also urged the use of the natural horn for performances in which he himself was not involved. In a letter to Albert Dietrich he wrote that

Brahms’ dear friend Clara Schumann recognized the importance of the instrument to Brahms. When she wrote to him about a performance she played of the Horn Trio, she explained the use of valve horn almost apologetically, writing that

Brahms expressed one of his reasons for choosing the natural horn in a letter published in the Beilage zur Allgemeine Music-Zeitung in 1899. He wrote that "if the performer is not obliged by the stopped notes to play softly the piano and violin are not obliged to adapt themselves to him, and the tone is rough from the beginning." Brahms was thus not only concerned about the horn player sounding too loud and rough, but about the effect that this would have on the whole ensemble. Bessaraboff, in his Ancient and European Musical Instruments points out that

As someone who has performed the trio on hand horn with a period piano and a violinist using gut strings, I can wholeheartedly confirm Bessaraboff’s astute observation. The issue of general dynamic level, and the corresponding tone quality, is exactly what Brahms was referring to in the above quotation. Here, then, is our first opportunity to apply our knowledge to a performance of the Horn Trio. If a valve hornist wants to play the trio in a manner in keeping with what Brahms conceived and desired, (s)he will be very careful about keeping his/her dynamic level generally lower than (s)he is used to, and using a soft, not "rough" tone "from the beginning." Using a more closed hand position in the bell is an excellent way to accomplish this, since, as we have seen, this was an essential part of the hand horn’s color, and it is this color that Brahms clearly preferred. The performer, obviously, must play with a sound that is in keeping with his/her taste, but one should, at the very least, experiment. The hornist is on the right track if (s)he must reprimand the violinist and pianist for playing too loud, especially in softer passages. In the following chapters, we shall examine specific examples of how Brahms used the closed tones of hand horn technique for dynamic control, as well as other ways in which hand horn technique affects a performance of the piece.

The fact that Brahms wrote the piece expressly for natural horn has caused some confusion for certain writers. There are principally three related misconceptions that one finds in the literature, and it is worth taking a moment to dispel these. Michael Musgrave, in The Music of Brahms, has the dubious distinction of voicing all three misconceptions in a single paragraph. He writes that

The first misconception, that Brahms somehow limits his pitches to the notes of the harmonic series, is particularly glaring and misleading. Malcolm MacDonald, in his study Brahms, echoes this mistake when he writes that Brahms’ "choice of a natural horn...caused him to limit his notes to those of the harmonic series obtainable on that instrument, whose strong natural sonority he clearly preferred."

A simple look at the score makes it clear that Brahms absolutely did not limit himself to the notes of the harmonic series - in the first movement, almost half the notes are stopped. More importantly, the reason Brahms so clearly preferred the natural horn was not because of its "strong natural sonority," but because of the effect that hand horn technique had on its sound. What is interesting about the use of hand horn in the Horn Trio is, with few exceptions, the use of the stopped notes and not the use of the open notes. A piece with no stopped tones, as MacDonald and Musgrave mistakenly suggests the trio is, would thus lack exactly the quality that Brahms sought out. In addition, in such a piece there would be little difference between a performance on hand horn and one on valve horn, as the main difference between the two is the use of stopped tones with the former.

The second misconception that we see at the end of the Musgrave quotation is that somehow the hand horn caused Brahms to limit his tonal variety with the specific result being that the first movement is not in sonata form. MacDonald echoes this mistake when he writes that "the need to evolve themes suitable for [the horn’s] participation on equal terms with the other instruments probably influenced him in the direction of simpler forms." David Elliott writes that "with a rather limited possibility for modulation Brahms forgoes his usual first movement ‘sonata form’..." Peter Latham, in his book Brahms, writes that

What is particularly interesting about this last quote is that Latham himself, after conveying the misconception that the limitations of the natural horn are the reason behind the first movement’s unique form, immediately contradicts himself. Brahms does indeed call for the horn to play in the minor subdominant in the trio of the scherzo movement, with a very large proportion of its notes stopped. This shows that Brahms, if he had desired, could certainly have managed a sonata form movement complete with tonal variety, even if that required many stopped notes. As it is, the first movement visits the keys of G flat major, g minor, Cb major, b flat minor, A major, and Ab major, to name a few. This hardly justifies a feeling of "the normal tonal range being unavailable," as Musgrave wrote above. Brahms’ reasons for forsaking first movement sonata form for this one piece in his instrumental output must lie elsewhere, and we shall investigate them in the next chapter.

The final misconception, which is related to the previous one, we have seen in the Musgrave and Latham quotes. This is the idea that the natural horn somehow required all four movements to be in E flat. Elliott is simply wrong when he describes Brahms’ choice of E flat as the key for all the movements as an example of "typical hand horn technique and practice." Certainly there were reasons that Brahms chose E flat for all four movements, and those reasons at least partially relate to the use of the natural horn, but it is wrong to suppose that Brahms had no other options or was keeping with tradition.

It is true that it would have been very difficult for Brahms to have used different crooks for different movements. Using one crook for an entire piece was standard practice for solo and chamber music for the hand horn, for the following reason. The best crooks for solo playing, due to where their harmonic series lie on the horn, are the middle crooks of F, E, E-flat and D. These were the standard crooks for solos and chamber music. One can see that it is impossible to choose two of these solo crooks that bear a close key relationship to each other. If a composer wanted to use different crooks for different movements, he would have had to rely on high or low crooks. It is also possible that it was considered unseemly for a hornist to change crooks in the middle of a solo or chamber work.

Although crook changes were unrealistic, Brahms did have another, viable alternative. He could have written different movements in different keys, while keeping the same crook on the horn. This was standard procedure, and Brahms certainly knew about it - Mozart and Beethoven both did this in their piano and wind quintets, which Brahms knew and played. In both of these pieces, the second movements are in B flat, even though the horn remains crooked in E flat.

Why then did Brahms write all four movements in E flat? For one thing, we shall see in our discussions of the movements that in many ways, on many levels, the harmonic structure of the piece is about the key of Eb, major and minor. Brahms’ keeping all four movements in Eb is, then, the largest scale manifestation of the harmonic life of the piece.

Another possible reason for the retention of Eb throughout is that Brahms wanted to intensify the feeling of harmonic departure and return. As written, the tonic in each movement is reinforced by the open tones of the horn. The farther away the music gets from the tonic, the more chord tones are stopped, and the closer the music is to the tonic, the more chord tones are open. By keeping the same tonic for each movement, and by consistently reinforcing this tonic with the open tones of the horn, the key structure and form are particularly highlighted, and the sense of harmonic return to the home key is particularly strong.

Feelings of return are very important in the trio. We already have a sense of this from our knowledge of the piece’s genesis. Brahms’ mother had passed away, and he chose to write a piece for an instrument he strongly associated with his childhood home - a sort of return to his early youth. This sense of return to childhood will be further examined when we investigate the possibility that a theme in the last two movements is derived from a folksong that the young Brahms learned from his mother. And the feeling of return can help explain the unique form of the first movement, to which we now turn our attention.

PHONE: 1 (781) 646-5756

FAX: 1 (781) 646-2480

 COMPANY  |  SERVICES  |  STORE  |  INSTRUMENTS  |  REFERENCE   |  HOME

Visit our Retail Store and Repair Shop in Arlington, Massachusetts