"Orchestral hand horn"

Orchestral hand horn | Unknown | Late 18th Century

Orchestral hand horn. Photo by Dominic Ibbotson Photograph © The University of Edinburgh

Audio Clips

Orchestral horns were often made and played in pairs. This matched set has additional tubing placed between the mouthpiece and instrument. This tubing is called a crook and allowed the player to make the length of the horn longer and thus play in a different key. The player would need to manually change the crooks between songs or even during rests in the music if they music changed key.Two crook and coupler type. One of a pair coiled in opposite senses.

Naturhorn

Unknown

Instrument Data

Instrument Information

Title

Orchestral hand horn

Accession Number

2888

Collection

MIMEd

Date Information

Date Made

Late 18th Century

Period

18th century; 1760s; 1770s; 1780s; 1790s; 1800s

Gallery Information

Gallery

Wolfson Gallery

Case

Brasswind case 3

Maker Information

Maker Name

Unknown

Made In

No information recorded.

Description

Technical Description

Overall size: perpendicular to bell 408; corpus diameter 285; bell diameter 242. Sounding length: segment lengths: proximal segment 1390; bell segment 835. Overall air column of crooks (2888a) 395, (2888b) 1280, (2888c) 1245. Bore: 55.5mm from bell end, 123; Bell wall angle at D=100mm, 22.6. Dia of mouthpiece receiver: m.r.t. of crooks (2888a) 7.4 at end, (2888b) 7.6 at end; external taper of crook (2888a) 11.2 11.9, (2888b) 12.2 11.8. Crook/coupler receiver taper of coupler (2888c) 12.2 11.4; external taper of coupler (2888c) 10.6 11.6 (not original). Crook/coupler receiver taper on body 12.2 11.6. Technical description: 2½ coils excluding crooks; angle between axis of mouthpipe / crook receiver and axis of bell 133; left handed; yellow brass. Metal construction: ovelapping joint between proximal and bell segments; bell longitudinally seamed with single gusset; plain garland, width 30. Terminally crooked; crook receiver reinforced with ferrule and flat stay. With 1 coil master crook (2888a) for high C, 3 coil master crook (2888b) for G, and 3 coil coupler (2888c) serving for D with master crook (2888b). No inscriptions. Lacks several couplers. Usable pitch: Plays 15 cents above A4 = 415 Hz, crooked in C, D or G. Coupler can be used with master crook (2888a) to play in F at A4 = 440 Hz. Performance characteristics: Plays freely to 16th natural note. Associated with horn (2887) as a matched mirror pair.

Provenance

Lady Armitage, Kirklees Hall, Yorkshire.; on loan to the Collection.

Classification