horn

The normal compass of the horn. One or two higher and lower notes are possible. The modern keyed horn is built in F and high B flat, with four valves, one of which transposes the instrument from the lower to the higher pitch.

Member of a family of lip-reed wind instruments used for signalling and ritual, and sharing features of a generally conical bore (although the orchestral horn is of part conical and part straight bore) and curved shape, producing a pitch of rising or variable inflection.

Many horns are based on animal horns, for example the shofar of Hebrew ritual and the medieval oliphant and gemshorn, and shells, for example the conch shell of Pacific island peoples. Horns made of metal originated in South America and also Central Asia (Tibet, India, Nepal), and reached Europe along with the technology of metalwork in the Bronze Age. The familiar hunting horn, unchanged for many centuries, was adapted and enlarged in the 18th century to become an orchestral instrument, its limited range of natural harmonics extended by a combination of lip technique and hand stopping within the bell and the use of extension crooks for changes of key.

The modern valve horn is a 19th-century hybrid B flat/F instrument; the name French horn strictly applies to the earlier cor à pistons which uses lever-action rotary valves and produces a lighter tone. The Wagner tuba is a horn variant in tenor and bass versions devised by Wagner to provide a fuller horn tone in the lower range. Composers for horn include Mozart, Haydn, Richard Strauss, Weber, Schumann (Konzertstück for four horns, 1848), Ravel, and Benjamin Britten (Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, 1943).