The Victory of the Valve

Centuries ago, when the horn’s main purpose was merely to signal different hunting strategies in the great outdoors, the thought of it becoming a regular member of the orchestra was utterly blasphemous. Who would want the uncivilized, brash calls of the hunting horn to intrude on the serene melodies of the orchestra?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmQv67CmPf8

Well, through a long process of technological modifications, the horn achieved the ability to express the chromatic melodies of its counterparts. This was due in large to the invention of the valve in 1818, an advancement still present in the instruments played by professionals today.

The Natural Horn

Before going into detail about the process of inventing a valve system for the horn, it is first important to understand its previous form. In the early 1800’s, most of the European horn players played what we today refer to as the “natural horn.” The term “natural” simply implies that the horn player could only produce the notes of the harmonic series that was available to him or her in that specific key of tubing. The harmonic series (or overtone series) is a recurring pattern of notes that exist in the natural world. It begins with a fundamental note, and is followed by a series of partials each doubled in frequency (Bernstein, “Harmonic Series – Explained”).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TlQryUBz3E

The natural horn was in a circular form and had a bell on one end and a mouthpiece on the other (think, for instance, the apple post horn emoji 📯). Different slidable lengths of tubing, known as “crooks,” may be added to the instrument in order to change the key in which the horn sits in. It was discovered by Joseph Hampel that by altering the right hand’s position in the bell, the notes of the harmonic series could be altered chromatically (Tuckwell 26). In the year 1800, Joseph Vandenbroek, a member of the Paris Opera Orchestra, published a treatise on the horn, all based off of Hampel’s discoveries (Tuckwell 28). This hand-stopping technique, along with the introduction of tunable crooks, greatly expanded the possibilities for horn repertoire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsUkKyo6dQ

The Horn’s Rise in Popularity

Composers such as Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven took a liking to the natural horn and began implementing ways to unify horn section writing (first and third horns play in a higher register, while second and fourth horns play in a lower register). But as the popularity of the horn increased, composers were largely limited with the music they could write for the natural horn (Gregory, “The Horn in Beethoven Symphonies”). The range of available notes was considerably low, and not every audience member was in favor of the bright color of the hand-stopped pitches.

Technological Experiments

In order to make the process of changing keys more feasible on the horn, J.B. Dupont invented an omnitonic horn in 1815 in which every crook was built into one moveable slide (Gregory 29).

Yeah, that’s a lot of tubing. Clearly, this instrument was extremely heavy and in some cases still required the player to change mouthpiece position. Callcott, born in 1801, tried to popularize a “radius French horn,” but it, too, was very cumbersome (Tuckwell 38).

The Valve–At Last!

Finally, after much trial and error, Heinrich Stolzel and Friedrich Bluhmel were issued a joint patent for a valve system on April 12, 1818 (Tuckwell 42). Originally, their invention consisted of two piston valves. One of the valves lowered it by semitone and the other by a whole tone. If used together, a note could be lowered a whole minor third. Now, the horn could perform in four different keys without a crook change or right hand movement.

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This new way of considering the build of horns truly changed the course of the instrument’s future. Later versions of the valve developed, including the vienna valve, and the more common rotary valve (Tuckwell 47-49). But without the Stolzel-Bluhmel patent in 1818, these innovations could have been entirely nonexistent.

The invention of the valve changed the future of this instrument—and every brass instrument, for that matter. It largely expanded the possibilities for composers and players alike by allowing a greater range and facility of the instrument. This revolutionary musical technology can definitely be seen as a “victory” because of its continual use in the orchestra today, after years of trial and error. By understanding this process from limited hand-stopped horn playing to chromatically limitless valve horn, one might gain some curiosity as to how we might be able to improve the current forms of the instruments played in the modern orchestra, and perhaps cause a new sort of “evolution.”

Sources

Bernstein, “The Harmonic Series – Explained”

Fitzpatrick, Horace. “The Valveless Horn in Modern Performances of Eighteenth-CenturyMusic.” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 91, 1964, pp. 45–60. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/765964.

Gregory, Robin. The Horn. Faber and Faber, 1961.

Gregory, Robin. “The Horn in Beethoven’s Symphonies.” Music & Letters, vol. 33, no. 4, 1952, pp. 303–310. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/729742.

Tuckwell, Barry. Horn. Schirmer Books, 1983.