Enfilade

From Yale UP:

Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti, The Horn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023), 416 pages, ISBN: 978-0300118933, $45.

A rich and fascinating account of one of music history’s most ancient, varied, and distinctive instruments

From its origins in animal horn instruments in classical antiquity to the emergence of the modern horn in the seventeenth century, the horn appears wherever and whenever humans have made music. Its haunting, timeless presence endures in jazz and film music, as well as orchestral settings, to this day. In this welcome addition to the Yale Musical Instrument Series, Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti trace the origins of the modern horn in all its variety. From its emergence in Turin and its development of political and diplomatic functions across European courts, to the revolutionary invention of valves, the horn has presented in innumerable guises and forms. Aided by musical examples and newly discovered sources, Meucci and Rocchetti’s book offers a comprehensive account of an instrument whose history is as complex and fascinating as its music.

Renato Meucci directs the Cultural Heritage department of the celebrated Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Gabriele Rocchetti is horn professor at the Conservatory Luca Marenzio, and a fine natural horn player.

c o n t e n t s

List of Figures
List of Musical Examples
List of Tables Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Foreword

Part I
1  Preliminary Note on Roman Military Instruments
2  Early Horns and Calls
3  The Coiled Trompe
4  Spiral Instruments
5  Early French Hunting Fanfares
6  Hooped Models
7  Preserved Instruments
8  Von Sporck and the Trompe de Chasse
9  The Natural Hunting Horn (Jadgwaldhorn)
10  Trumpet and Horn Players
11  The Natural Horn at its Zenith (Orchesterwaldhorn)
12  Duets
13  Four Case Studies: Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Telemann
14  Instruments’ Names in the Baroque Era

Part II
15  The Classic Era
16  New Crook Systems
17  The Classical Repertoire
18  The Heyday of the Hand Horn
19  Transitional Systems

Part III
20  Valve Horns
21  Further Valve Systems
22  Reports by Contemporaries
23  Early Music Literature
24  Valve Dissemination: A Regional Overview
25  A Few Leading Composers
26  Double Horn
27  The Horn in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
28  The Repertoire of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
29  The Present-Day Horn

Bibliography
Index

Appendix 1  Notation
Appendix 2  High vs. Low Horn in Haydn’s Symphonies
Appendix 3  Two Letters by Blühmel