Horn Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, 1792 to 1903

The Transition from Natural Horn to Valved Horn

Jeffrey Snedeker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000405583
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

The transition from the valveless natural horn to the modern valved horn in 19th-century Paris was different from similar transitions in other countries. While valve technology was received happily by players of other members of the brass family, strong support for the natural horn, with its varied color palette and virtuoso performance traditions, slowed the reception and application of the valve to the horn.

Using primary sources including Conservatoire method books, accounts of performances and technological advances, and other evidence, this book tells the story of the transition from natural horn to valved horn at the Conservatoire, from 1792 to 1903, including close examination of horn teaching before the arrival of valved brass in Paris, the initial reception and application of this technology to the horn, the persistence of the natural horn, and the progression of acceptance, use, controversies, and eventual adoption of the valved instrument in the Parisian community and at the Conservatoire.

Active scholars, performers, and students interested in the horn, 19th-century brass instruments, teaching methods associated with the Conservatoire, and the intersection of technology and performing practice will find this book useful in its details and conclusions, including ramifications on historically-informed performance today.

1 Introduction

Overview of the problem

The invention of the valve and its application to brass wind instruments in the early 1800s is one of the most significant technological advances in the history of musical instruments. The change this technology made to the ability of trumpets, horns, and low brass to participate more fully in solo and ensemble music had a ripple effect that was felt across Europe and eventually across the world. Instruments once limited by their own nature to a relative few notes suddenly could participate as equals, in full voice. The freedom felt by performers and composers to express themselves must have been palpable. One might expect that such an innovation would be greeted with unanimous praise and excitement, and then immediately adopted.

As with most technological developments, valves took some time to catch on. Not unexpectedly, while some players and regions took to them more readily and explored the new chromatic range of open notes, others were more cautious, especially those where more robust traditions had developed. Further, the technology was not received or applied consistently for each member of the brass family. Some, like trumpets and lower brass, absorbed and exploited the benefits more quickly in various settings, especially military and social music. Others with different traditions, for example regions that valued the natural horn with its predominantly orchestral association and handstopping technique that made the instrument chromatic in a somewhat acceptable way, were more reluctant to discard what were seen as positive attributes for the sake of novelty. Still, one would expect that such an important improvement would be adopted quickly. As a result, in a country with rich musical traditions, like France, where the colors available on the natural horn were celebrated, it is not surprising to find a reluctance to use something perceived as heavier, less colorful, inconsistent in its mechanism, and perhaps more awkward to work with in a musical setting. Then again, when the music of the day demanded more than the natural horn could provide, why would this reluctance persist, especially with improved mechanisms and plenty of examples of fine performers elsewhere? And how could this happen in a place that was one of the primary centers of music and innovation, like Paris? Wasn’t anyone teaching this new instrument?

In August of 1922, noted author Reginald Morley-Pegge received a letter from François Brémond, his former horn teacher and professor at the Paris Conservatoire. In the letter, Brémond shared the following:

My dear Pegge,

…The valve-horn class had not been held since 1863, and it was I who asked M. Ambroise Thomas to allow me to hold one valve-horn class every week.

I then got permission for the sight-reading test at the annual public examination to be played on the valve horn (for this the student fitted a detachable set of valves to his instrument in public), and finally both the set piece and the sight-reading test to be played on the valve horn, hand technique being retained for specifically hand-horn phrases. From then on (1897) the valve-horn class was virtually, if not officially, reinstated by me. Hand horn until 1896—hand and valve horn from 1897 to 1902—valve horn since 1903…¹

Scholars of the horn and its music may find this information confusing. Valves had been invented almost 100 years before. How could Europe’s leading educational institution for music espouse anything but the most up-to-date technologies and playing techniques? How could the valveless natural horn be the focus of horn instruction at an institution committed to producing performers who would eventually play the operas of Auber, Meyerbeer, Halévy, Berlioz, Wagner, Saint-Saëns, and instrumental works by a host of progressive nineteenth-century composers?

Almost 40 years before Brémond’s letter, in November 1886, Camille Saint-Saëns offered the following observations in Le Ménestrel:

Nowadays chromaticism is used much more often than in the past, which means that sudden modulations cannot always be executed by the horn. To do so they would have to change the crook, which again means that the orchestra has to do for a few bars without the horns, since replacing a crook on the instrument by another one—of a different temperature and consequently too low—takes time. Some will say that there is always hand-stopping that allows a chromatic scale equal to any other instrument, but even so, if the modulation or the note to be sustained happens to be:

the effect is as if the horns did not play at all. And that is where the valve horn comes in: it can play all these notes. But even with the valve horn, there will always be a moment when one is obliged to change the crook, because this system does not comprise the range of all the extra crooks…²

Saint-Saëns’ statements show not only a continuing problem facing composers who wanted to write for the valved horn, but also a further challenge—the continuing practice of using crooked instruments. He also shows a desire to write for all instruments such that they would be non-transposing and able to play all the time, in any key, which would certainly seem to make score reading easier and could even make rehearsals more efficient. Famed cornetist Jean-Baptiste Arban saw this article and responded in kind to Ambroise Thomas, the new Conservatoire director. Arban’s purpose was two-fold, however: to promote his new valved cornet in C, with an “invention” to allow it to be played in B, B♭, and A, and to advocate for the reinstitution of the valved horn class.

So as to avoid polemics that are often only confusing, I endeavor to beg of you, dear Master, to gather a musical commission consisting of eminent composers, members of the Institute, to whom you could add some other famous composers.

After having heard and analysed [sic] the instrument [i.e., the cornet] that I shall have the honor to submit to them, these composers would be fully qualified to ask you to introduce it officially into my class as well as other conservatories in the Province. The three years of success that you yourself have recognized, give me the hope that you will deign to give special interest to the instruction of this instrument by placing your complete trust in this system, as so far you have shown it to myself.

The commission could at the same time discuss with you the reintegration of the valve horn into the Conservatoire. The class has been discontinued after the death of Meifred, leaving a vacancy that is to be regretted for the same reasons as mentioned above. Nothing would be simpler than to create a mixed class for simple horn and valve horn, led by the same teacher.

It is up to you, dear Master, to give the signal of Progress by introducing into the Conservatoire the changes called for by the Modern School.³

The valved horn had its advocates, but even in the 1880s, the Conservatoire appeared to resist this modern technology—there was no apparent Arban of the valved horn to take up the cause. Twenty years earlier, in the 1860s, this same issue was on the minds of composers and critics. Critic François-Joseph Fétis was a strong advocate for valved instruments. Especially after the valved horn class was discontinued at the Conservatoire, he asserted repeatedly that valves were among the most important discoveries ever offered to composers. According to Fétis, valved instruments had been embraced with enthusiasm in Germany and Belgium, but France (“toujours en retard”) appreciated only the cornet, thanks to the accomplishments of the aforementioned cornetist Arban.⁴ Other countries had moved forward by adopting valved horns, trumpets, and trombones, and substituting bass and contrabass saxhorns for ophicleides, but:

The prejudice against valved horns is so well-rooted, that the most skillful artists disdain them. They have persuaded themselves that the sound of the valved horn is inferior to that of the natural horn; but if men of the talent of Messrs. Mohr, Paquis, and Baneux would avail themselves to study this instrument, they would soon have proof that their quality of sound would lose none of its purity. On top of that, it would suffer them to hear the four valved horns of the orchestra at the Brussels Conservatory to acquire the conviction that in no place does the horn have more brilliance and purity. Finally, anyone knows that it is not possible to have a true fourth horn without valves, because it is by their combinations that the instrument gains a complete low octave.⁵

Fétis’ frustration in the 1860s is surprising because the same advantages described in the commentary above were recognized and encouraged previously. Twenty years earlier, in 1843, in his discussion of orchestrating for the horn in his Traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration, Hector Berlioz separated discussions of the valveless instrument (cor) from its valved counterpart (cor à pistons et à cylindres). After offering much discussion on the natural instrument and its idiosyncrasies, Berlioz stated that composers can treat valved instruments in two ways: as natural instruments, using the valves only to effect immediate crook changes, or as completely chromatic instruments. He then offered his own opinion as to their proper uses:

This [valve] system offers advantages, especially for the second [i.e., low] horns, owing to the considerable gaps between their natural low notes which it fills up, beginning with the lowest C [c] and ascending; but the timbre of the valved horn differs a little from that of the natural horn; it cannot therefore replace it in every case. I believe it should be treated almost like a separate instrument, particularly fitted for giving good bass [parts], vibrant and energetic, yet not possessing so much force as the low sounds of the tenor trombone, to which its own bear much resemblance. It can also render a melody well, especially one principally of sounds in the middle [register]….

Many composers show themselves opposed to this new instrument, because, since its introduction into orchestras, certain horn players, using the valves for playing ordinary [i.e., natural] horn parts, find it more convenient to produce by this mechanism as open notes, notes intentionally written as closed notes by the author. This is, in fact, a dangerous abuse; but it is for orchestral conductors to prevent its increase, and moreover, it should be clarified that the horn with valves, in the hands of a skillful player, can give all the closed sounds of the ordinary horn, and yet more, since it can execute the whole scale without employing a single open note. Since the use of the valves, by changing the key of the instrument, gains the open notes of other keys, in addition to those of the principal key, it is clear that it must also secure the closed notes…. It is important for the composer to indicate, by the word “Stopped”… the notes which he does not wish to be produced open…⁶

Thus, in the 1840s, valves applied to the horn were seen as a distinct advantage, not only adding open notes to the horn’s full range, but offering an expressive alternative, a full range of stopped colors, to the instrument’s resources. Berlioz’ mention of opposition to the use of the valve is somewhat surprising since ten years earlier, in 1833, a horn player named Joseph-Émile Meifred was hired to be the first valved horn professor at the Paris Conservatoire. A few years later, Meifred published a method for the valved horn that was roundly supported by the Conservatoire administration and his colleagues in the Conservatoire, Opéra, and Société des Concerts. His work as a teacher, performer, and innovator was eventually recognized across Europe as progressive and influential. This evidence seems to indicate some sort of validation of the instrument at the time.

From the quotes above, it can be seen that valved brass instruments were available and valued enough for a valved horn class to be instituted and taught at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1830s. Yet, for some reason, there also seemed to be enough prejudice against it for the class to be discontinued in the 1860s, after which a significant amount of time passed before it was reinstituted, all the way to the beginning of the twentieth century. When this is considered from the perspective of the operas performed and the range of composers and musical styles that appeared in Paris during the nineteenth century, some interesting questions arise about the traditions in Paris and at the Conservatoire before valves arrived, what happened when they did arrive and were applied to the horn, and how the perceptions and approaches to the natural horn influenced not only the valved horn’s adoption but also the nat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Note on author
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of figures
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Early horn tutors in France, the formation of the Conservatoire, and the Conservatoire’s first horn teachers
• 3 Valved brass instruments in Paris
• 4 Hand and valve: Joseph-Émile Meifred, Jacques-François Gallay, and horn teaching at the Conservatoire 1833–1864
• 5 Other valved horn activity in Paris: two valves or three?
• 6 Late nineteenth-century developments at the Conservatoire
• 7 Applications to performing practices and hand and/or valve today
• Appendix 1: Foreign language quotations
• Appendix 2: Writings and compositions of Joseph-Émile Meifred
• Appendix 3: The Mechanic (Le Mécanicien) by Joseph-Émile Meifred
• Bibliography
• Index