Beethoven Symphonies HIP

[PerfectWagnerite]

Okay, I see what you are saying. But that is what makes the job of the conductor so interesting right? You can restore that to a high C and be right and if you keep it as is you can say you are preserving Brahm's score as presented. As written the 1st horn part is certainly a bit awkward. But I (and that is just my opinion here) tend to think you keep it as is. I tend to like to go by what the composer wrote explicitly.

Regarding bar 395, when I first read your post I mistakenly thought you were saying how the high C in the 3rd horn part is ususally transposed DOWN an octave! When I listened to the Klemperer (computer CD rom drive through tiny computer speakers) I couldn't really hear the horn part at the bar very well so I thought Klemperer transposed it down an octave at 395. I did the same to Mackerras (whose natural horns are much more piercing) I heard it distinctly as written in 395. That lead me erroneously to conclude that you were referring to 395 and that some conductors transpose the 3rd horn part at that point down an octave. Norrington I heard as written though as the MP3 file somehow came through loud and clear through computer speakers.

So much for that as you'd most likely just laugh.

[M forever]

Okay, I see what you are saying. But that is what makes the job of the conductor so interesting right? You can restore that to a high C and be right and if you keep it as is you can say you are preserving Brahm's score as presented. As written the 1st horn part is certainly a bit awkward. But I (and that is just my opinion here) tend to think you keep it as is. I tend to like to go by what the composer wrote explicitly.

And apparently most conductors agree with you here. Off the top of my head, I can actually only think of C.Kleiber and Norrington as two conductors that I know have the 1st horn play the high C (E).
Actually Mackerras does it, too. I just checked the recording with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra because I happen to have that on my hard disc. I have some more here, actually: Dohnányi does it, too, in two live recordings I have here, with the NDR and the LAP, and so does Fischer-Dieskau (yes, the singer) in his recording with the CP. I also have one of Kleiber's several live recordings here, the one with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester from 1996, not surprisingly, the horn plays the high C here as well, Kleiber actually has him totally hammer out the high C almost as if he wanted to make a statement there.

On the other hand, if we want to stick to what the composer explicitly wrote, then why doesn't everybody play these parts on natural horns as Brahms explicitly wished - he even went to the troble of writing out all the parts for natural horns in changing keys.
Hmm....

Regarding bar 395, when I first read your post I mistakenly thought you were saying how the high C in the 3rd horn part is ususally transposed DOWN an octave! When I listened to the Klemperer (computer CD rom drive through tiny computer speakers) I couldn't really hear the horn part at the bar very well so I thought Klemperer transposed it down an octave at 395. I did the same to Mackerras (whose natural horns are much more piercing) I heard it distinctly as written in 395. That lead me erroneously to conclude that you were referring to 395 and that some conductors transpose the 3rd horn part at that point down an octave. Norrington I heard as written though as the MP3 file somehow came through loud and clear through computer speakers.

That confusion was probably caused by Brahms writing for pairs in different keys here, the second pair is actually in low C, so the part "looks" much higher than it sounds, and if you don't quickly transpose in your head, it can easily "look" like what you are hearing is actually lower than what's written.

[Larry Rinkel]

The high C for the horns in E makes more sense to me. But your comments don't explain why Brahms writes high Cs for the horns in C, both at 395 and 403. Would the C have been more manageable on the lower-pitched instrument? Curiously enough (especially as he was a hornist), in his analysis of many recorded performances of this symphony, Gunther Schuller does not address this problem in his book The Compleat Conductor.

I would always favor score emendation when a composer chooses something like an octave transposition because of obvious limitations in an instrument's range. Moving this back to Beethoven, there's an example in the 1st piano concerto where he clearly needed a high F#, and actually wrote F natural because the pianos at that time went no higher. Many scores (and the one in my pic looks like the old Breitkopf und Härtel edition) silently emend the F to F#, so even when one is referring to the score, one has to be aware of textual cruxes that may be obscured by editorial choices. The Eulenburg score I have of this concerto prints the F#, but doesn't even mention this in the Revisionsbericht, it's so clearly what the sense of the music requires. But every once in a while you'll hear of a pianist who pedantically insists on playing F natural.

A parallel case obtains in the first movement of the D major sonata, Op. 10/3. The Kalmus Urtext leaves out the upper F#, but many editions (such as the Casella I've captured) add it anyway, and it would be absurd not to.

[M forever]

Beethoven's piano only went up to F above the stave? Wow. I didn't know that.

The high C for the horns in E makes more sense to me. But your comments don't explain why Brahms writes high Cs for the horns in C, both at 395 and 403. Would the C have been more manageable on the lower-pitched instrument?

I have no idea why Brahms wrote that. Basically, from what I can judge from when I played the horn myself many years ago, it isn't really easier to play that high C on a low C horn than on a higher pitched horn. It is still a very high and hard to hit harmonic.
It is easier to play the same sounding note transposed down to G on an F horn (sounding middle C), but then again, Brahms allegedly wrote for natural horns here, so that is not an explanation. He writes some high Cs for the 3rd horn in Eflat in the 1st symphony and that is basically the same as the high C for the E horn, the half tone makes no difference for the lip. Either you can play up there or not. Maybe he felt this was "safer" because the horn leapes up from the middle C, and in the 4th, the horn enters more or less feely on the high C. Or maybe he simply didn't give it that much thought.
But in any case, it certainly makes much more sense to have the high C here, and I think it also sounds much more "dramatic", very fitting in this critical moment. As I found out in the meantime, rather more conductors than I thought at first seem to think so too.

[Gurn Blanston]

Larry,
I've read that Beethoven went back a few years later and revised some of his sonata scores to take into account the new capabilities of the continually evolving pianoforte. Would this be a case where he did exactly that, but some scores remain unrevised? My reference doesn't specify which ones he did that to, only that he did it to "some of his earlier sonatas". 

[Larry Rinkel]

Beethoven's piano only went up to F above the stave? Wow. I didn't know that.

At the time of the early sonatas and concertos, and at least through the time of the Appassionata. And his lowest bass note was the lowest F on today's piano. Near the end of his life the range of the piano expanded, so that one sees the C a fourth lower, as in the close of the first movement of Op. 111. The manuscript for Op. 101, the sonata in A, reads "Contra E!!!" to celebrate the increasing range. The upper range expanded too; the G-A trills in the second movement of Op. 111 would not have been possible on the pianos of his youth.

I have no idea why Brahms wrote that. Basically, from what I can judge from when I played the horn myself many years ago, it isn't really easier to play that high C on a low C horn than on a higher pitched horn. It is still a very high and hard to hit harmonic.

I don't know how difficult the high Bb would have been, but you'll see it written for the horn in C in the lyric opening theme from the 3rd movement of the 3rd symphony.

And now I must really get a life and go outside on this beautiful warm day. . . .   

[Larry Rinkel]

Larry,
I've read that Beethoven went back a few years later and revised some of his sonata scores to take into account the new capabilities of the continually evolving pianoforte. Would this be a case where he did exactly that, but some scores remain unrevised? My reference doesn't specify which ones he did that to, only that he did it to "some of his earlier sonatas". 

Could be, but I hadn't heard this before.

[M forever]

I don't know how difficult the high Bb would have been, but you'll see it written for the horn in C in the lyric opening theme from the 3rd movement of the 3rd symphony.

Cartainly not too difficult for a really good horn player of the day, such as you would expect in an orchestra of the level of quality Brahms had in mind when he wrote his orchestral works (like the Wiener Philharmoniker). It was certainly not his objective to write "easy" pieces.

Actually, that high Bflat would be much more difficult on a natural C horn than the C above it because the C is a natural harmonic and if the lip is strong enough, it speaks very clearly. The Bflat on the other hnd would have to be intonation corrected, a little bit with the hand, that is much more difficult.

It also has to be kept in mind that the nature of the horn sound is to be a little "strained" in the higher registers. That is an "expressive" color value. Otherwise, the same passage on a clarinet would sound nice and round, too, and be very easy to play.

And as we know, Brahms' orchestral writing is really centered on that "romantic" horn color. His symphones really are a little bit like concertos for horn quartet. Especially since he wrote a lot of very important parts for the 3rd and 4th horns, he basically treats them almost as equals to the 1st and 2nd.

[PerfectWagnerite]

So humor me for a second M if you don't mind. Nowadays the standard horn section would play the entire passage using horns in F right? You wouldn't even see horns in low C or in E right? By that I mean if you were to go to a Chicago Symphony or Boston Symphony concert you would just see 4 horns in F right? A high "C" pretty standard ammunition for a modern orchestral horn player I would think. So using a modern F horn the only reason you would keep it as written is you are following the score as presented. My opinion is that conductors keep it that way because it is "safe". If they get questioned they can always give the correct answer: that is what Brahms wrote.

Now if you want the melody line to be correct you can just double the cello part (starting where you red-inked it) with the 3rd or 4th horn in low C right? Granted the entire part would be an octave lower but I think the horn in low C CAN play octave B-flats and keep the melody line continuous in measure 400.

[M forever]

No, it still wouldn't make sense if you look at what comes in the 1st and 2nd horn parts later. And *that* would be a really massive alteration of the scoring, not a logical correction. Really the only way to make complete sense of this passage is to play the one C an octave higher. I have a hard time understanding what is so difficult to understand about that. That's basically like a mathematical equasion, there is a small "error" here, but it can be easily corrected. Which actually way more conductors than I had thought at first do.

Any half decent horn player in any half decent orchestra would be deeply insulted by your suggestion that it would be safer for them to play the lower C.

Nowadays, nearly all horn players come on stage equipped with a double horn which combines an F and a high Bflat horn. Basically, the Bflat horn is shorter and therefore easier to play in the high register. The player can switch between both horn segments with a thumb valve. You can also see that under the crooks for the three main valves, there is a shorter set of crooks which is for the Bflat horn.



But the player "thinks" in F all the time, so he uses different fingerings for each note on the F and Bflat horn. When they play parts notated in other keys than F, they simply transpose to F no matter if they select the F or Bflat horn for the passage.


The big exception are the Wiener Philharmoniker who still play (almost) everything on the old single F horns which were the standard in the late 19th century. This is the true, undiluted romantic horn sound that Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, Strauss, Mahler knew and wrote for. It also comes very close to the sound of the natural horn. But it is much harder to play than the double horn, especially in the high register.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Wow that's interesting. Nice second picture, looks like it ought to be on the cover for a recording of Strauss' An Alpine Symphony.

[M forever]

Maybe, but only if the WP are on the recording. Otherwise it would be false advertising.

Like this idiotic cover



which is actually the only complete recording of Mozart's 4 horn concertos on the Vienna F horn, but it shows a double horn. To make it more silly, you can see a figure dressed in the style of Mozart's time mirrored in the bell. But in his time, there were no valve horns. Those were invented around 1814 but only came into use widely 20-30 years later. Schumann's Konzertstück was explicitly written for the valve horn. And the double horn was only invented in 1909.

BTW, Strauss actually wrote the Alpensinfonie for the Staatskapelle Dresden, but the area around Dresden isn't very "alpine" at all. More hilly. That wouldn't make such an impressive cover.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I thought that second picture looks familiar...it looks lot like this one (minus the horn of course):



While we are on the subject of horns, let me ask you this, on Beethoven's 9th symphony, 3rd movement, starting on where it is marked Adagio (see score below and ending a page later concluding on 12/8 tempo marking), Beethoven writes this solo for the 4th(!) horn that spans almost 4 octaves (from a written A-flat above the stave (treble clef) down to a low G below the stave (bass clef)). Can he reasonably expect a 4th horn player to execute this? I read somewhere that during the first performance the fourth horn player had a valve horn and said he could play anything and thus the demanding part Beethoven wrote for him. But still even with a modern horn that parts looks horrendously taxing. Is it usually played by the 4th horn player nowadays or is it played by the principle horn (who has no part during this time)?

[Greta]

that spans almost 4 octaves (from a written A-flat above the stave (treble clef) down to a low G below the stave (bass clef))

Yes, that does look difficult in that short amount of time. Though for a very good horn player nowadays, I think a high Ab is quite manageable even so.

Edit: 4 octaves? I was looking at the treble clef low Gs and didn't see m. 89 at first. It's only that measure, there must be an error. C, G, and then m. 89, C, G, out of nowhere two octaves lower?

[M forever]

While we are on the subject of horns, let me ask you this, on Beethoven's 9th symphony, 3rd movement, starting on where it is marked Adagio (see score below and ending a page later concluding on 12/8 tempo marking), Beethoven writes this solo for the 4th(!) horn that spans almost 4 octaves (from a written A-flat above the stave (treble clef) down to a low G below the stave (bass clef)). Can he reasonably expect a 4th horn player to execute this? I read somewhere that during the first performance the fourth horn player had a valve horn and said he could play anything and thus the demanding part Beethoven wrote for him. But still even with a modern horn that parts looks horrendously taxing. Is it usually played by the 4th horn player nowadays or is it played by the principle horn (who has no part during this time)?

No, that's typically played by the 4th horn player. 4th doesn't necessarily mean "only 4th best", especially not when it comes to horns. Sorry, but you really have some really strange ideas in your head. A 4th horn player in any reasonably good orchestra is still one of the best, one of the few select who made it into a good orchestra, better than many others who didn't. Nearly any player in any real "top" orchestra is a "star", one of the extremely few from among hundreds or thousands.

Because of the very large span of the horn which goes over 4+ octaves, it has traditionally been the custom for horn players to concentrate on the "lower" or "higher" register and indeed some people simply are more talented for one than the other. Why that is, I don't know, very fine physiological differences, I guess. Kind of like some singers are tenors, some of them baritones or basses.

The way it's been handled in orchestras since the 18th century is that there are one or several pairs of players, one high, one low. So the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th horn are typically "high" players, the even numbered ones low.

Because of the central role horns have played in orchestral music since the mid-18th century, all those parts are important. A 2nd or 4th horn player is not at all a worse player than a 1st or 3rd. They are typically specialists for their specific roles. Which doesn't mean that "high" players aren't expected to be able in the low register or the other way around. But most of the time, they stay in "their" typical register.

The 4th horn part is often just as important and demanding as the others, and difficult, too, because they often play the bass notes of the quartet, so a player with a really solid and secure low range is needed. For instance, when the BP need an extra 4th horn because of illness or somebody has time off, they don't just take any of the many good horn players in Berlin. They normally bring in a guy from the opera in Frankfurt who is known as an outstandingly good 4th horn with a huge low register sound.

Nothing "only 4th" about that.

[M forever]

Edit: 4 octaves? I was looking at the treble clef low Gs and didn't see m. 89 at first. It's only that measure, there must be an error. C, G, and then m. 89, C, G, out of nowhere two octaves lower?

No, that's correct. For a reason I don't know, horns are written an octave lower in bass clef, so effectively, the notes here are not a major 6th lower than written (because it's an Eflat horn part), but a minor third higher. So the first note in bar 89 is the exact same pitch as the note in the celli. I know, it's confusing, but that's the way it is.

The lowest note also indicates clearly that this part was written for a valve horn because that note can not be played on a natural horn at all, there is no way to "stop" that. There are no natural tones between the C in 89 (which is the first harmonic) and the theoretically lowest note which would be an octave lower than that C. So that G can only be played on the second harmonic (C) with the 1st and 3rd valve. It is almost impossible to make the fundamental note speak properly, so that is about as low as horn can play (theoretically, you can also press the 2nd valve to go a semitone lower, and you can also let the note "sag" another semitone, but there is really not much else down there).

So this clearly shows that Beethoven wrote this for the characteristics of the new valve horn. All the chromatic notes higher up could be stopped, but just how many of them there are makes this a highly unusual horn part for the time. Obviously Beethoven really wanted to make good use of the new type of instrument. Plus the first valve horns were actually crooked in Eflat. F only became the standard much later.

[PerfectWagnerite]

No, that's correct. For a reason I don't know, horns are written an octave lower in bass clef, so effectively, the notes here are not a major 6th lower than written (because it's an Eflat horn part), but a minor third higher. So the first note in bar 89 is the exact same pitch as the note in the celli. I know, it's confusing, but that's the way it is.

My goodness ! What a tease!

So as a former horn player, when you get your parts for a piece (like Brahm's 4th for example), they come they way they are written in the score (for E and low-C horns) then? And you have to transpose them on the fly as you play? Sounds kinda difficult to me.

[M forever]

I am not a former horn player, I just played the horn for a few years as a teenager. I also took some lessons from a horn player in the BP, but I never really "seriously" pursued it since I was already totally into playing the bass, and it is hard to find the time and concentration to learn several instruments really well. But I liked playing the horn, too. It came to me rather easily, I never had much problems with "cracking" notes and I could always play fairly high without much practicing (which is again because some people are just better suited for the high parts, some more for the low parts). So I honked around a little bit in orchestras, too, but I never studied the instrument very seriously or systematically.

But to answer your question, the parts always come as written in the score and you just transpose them. That is actually fairly easy, especially because horn parts from the classical era don't have that many different notes. With transposing the parts and choosing the different fingerings between the F and Bflat horn, it gets just a little complicated, but that's just part of the "craft" and it's still much easier than all the different fingerings woodwind players have to learn. The main "problem" with the horn is really hitting the right notes completely freely, since you can only rely on "muscle memory" and good ears to hit the notes, there are no visual or tactile (other than the "memory" of your "grin muscles") reference points to rely on.

[PerfectWagnerite]

But to answer your question, the parts always come as written in the score and you just transpose them.

There is nothing that prevents you from taking the part home and red-inking the transposed notes on top of the actual part I guess or is that cheating?
I wish I can play the horn, or rather the trombone. After listening to Mahler's 3rd over and over I am kind of inspired to play the trombone. Would you rank that as more or less difficult than playing the French horn?

[M forever]

There is nothing that prevents you from taking the part home and red-inking the transposed notes on top of the actual part I guess or is that cheating?

Except that it makes you look like an idiot when you smear around in the part because like I said, with a little practice,

it is not that difficult

certainly much, much easier than actually playing the horn.

I wish I can play the horn, or rather the trombone. After listening to Mahler's 3rd over and over I am kind of inspired to play the trombone. Would you rank that as more or less difficult than playing the French horn?

All instruments are difficult to play well. Some people are more suited for one type than others. For me, playing the trombone would be really hard because somehow, my lips worked much better for the horn. You don't need to have bigger lips necessarily for bigger mouthpieces, but some people are simply better suited for some instruments than others. Some people lack the agility and coordination required to play a string instrument, but they are fantastic trumpet players while some can't squeeze two notes out of a trumpet.