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 Post subject: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:04 am 
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How do the Vienna Philharmonic manage to play pedal "F"s and "E"s? These are called for in, for example, some of the lower horn parts in the 1st movt of Mahler 3 and these notes do not exist on a Vienna horn - at least not on one crooked in F. At a pinch, I can lip down to an F, but with so little volume as to be virtually useless. In any case some of the pedal "E"s in Mahler 3 are marked fff! Does the VPO (shock horror) cheat and play up the octave, I wonder?


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:12 am 
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Correction, the pedal "F"s are marked ff and the pedal "E"s are pp.


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:58 pm 
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Alepax wrote:
How do the Vienna Philharmonic manage to play pedal "F"s and "E"s? These are called for in, for example, some of the lower horn parts in the 1st movt of Mahler 3 and these notes do not exist on a Vienna horn - at least not on one crooked in F. At a pinch, I can lip down to an F, but with so little volume as to be virtually useless. In any case some of the pedal "E"s in Mahler 3 are marked fff! Does the VPO (shock horror) cheat and play up the octave, I wonder?

In much the same way as you play a pedal G in the Beethoven Horn Sonata in F on a natural horn with an F crook or the pedal B in the 2nd horn part of Beethoven S7 (towards the end of the 1st movement) on a natural horn with an A alto crook. Lip it down and use some right hand. Bending notes with your embouchure alone is very good practice even though it sounds crap but you don't use your right hand for this. :D


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:52 pm 
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Thanks for that. However, the Beethoven Horn Sonata analogy doesn't work. The Sonata involves jumping down a fourth to hit a "factitious" note and I am able to do that quite easily on my natural horns (I haven't yet attempted the other Beethoven example you quote, but I expect I could manage that, too).

Lipping down is a rather different technique and I imagine that there are limits to how far a note can be "bent". In the case of Mahler 3, obtaining the pedal "E" would involve lipping down a little over a whole tone from the lowest valved note, i.e. "F#" (with all three valves in combination this is a sharp note). Can anybody reading these posts confirm that they have been able to do this?!!


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Sat Jun 20, 2015 9:54 pm 
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Alepax wrote:
Lipping down is a rather different technique and I imagine that there are limits to how far a note can be "bent". In the case of Mahler 3, obtaining the pedal "E" would involve lipping down a little over a whole tone from the lowest valved note, i.e. "F#" (with all three valves in combination this is a sharp note). Can anybody reading these posts confirm that they have been able to do this?!!

That's what your right hand is for. The same would apply to the 2nd horn (playing on a single F horn) playing the pedal Fs in the slow movement of Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto and the long pedal F at the beginning of Beethoven's 4th Symphony. Lipping those down without using your right hand would be one way of doing it but using the right hand to lower the pedal F# by a semitone should give you more control and help keep the dynamics down to efffing quiet as intended by the composers. Are you sure you know the repertoire?


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:57 am 
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It is precisely because - after nearly 50 years of playing the horn - I do know the repertoire (and, incidentally, played in a performance of the Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto a fortnight ago) that I have posed the question :roll: My question relates specifically to the Vienna horn and I suspect that a satisfactory answer will be forthcoming only from somebody who knows his/her way around one of these. When I hear from a Vienna horn player that a ff pedal "F" and a pp pedal "E" can be achieved by lipping down on an F crook (rather than only by means of an alternative crooking), I will believe it.


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:13 pm 
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Location: Dover, Kent, UK
Earlier today I put out a request for some input from a member of the Scottish Vienna Horns, Terry Leese, and he has this to say ( after observing - correctly - that there now seems no longer to be an easy way to 'register' in order to post on these boards):

"My observation is that the Austrians have several ways to play assertive pedal notes, other than to bend a 3 valve - G flat down a bit.
Although the Jungwirth design horns do have a very long 3rd valve slide that could be extended, so as to help your journey downwards.
www.svh.org.uk/gallery/jungwirth

There exists a beasty bass horn. Engel made a few of them.
This instrument includes an extra 4th valve, set to add around 5 semitones of length, making an f horn into a C horn.
It has a bigger bell, bigger tubing, and can be used with a "brass band" mouthpiece (trombone / euphonium style).
www.svh.org.uk/gallery/engel

They also have the option of having a comrade use a Bb stick, (or even an A crook) to add the odd low note (Bb horn having an open pedal F)
www.svh.org.uk/gallery/haagston

Recently, I spotted the 2nd horn, in a VPO Brahms concert, using a Yamaha horn, with a special 3rd valve slide, that included an extra valve & lever, so that the 3rd valve could be rigged to go down a bit further, most likely 5 semitones to horn in C.
www.svh.org.uk/gallery/yamaha

The links show pictures of each solution.

Regards & best wishes"

Terry Leese
terry@svh.org.uk


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2015 1:21 pm 
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Thanks to Terry Leese we now know that armed with the right equipment the Vienna Philharmonic horn players are able to play the low notes in Mahler 3.

If they play a Jungwirth horn they can extend the 3rd valve slide.

They can use a special additional 3rd valve on their Yamahas.

They can ask another horn player to use a Bb or A crook to help them with the pedal F and pedal E.

They can use a four valve 'beasty bass' Engel horn.

These are all very interesting and would obviously work. Are we to deduce from this that without any of these helpful gadgets a horn player in the Vienna Philharmonic would be unable to play the notes written by Mahler and would therefore leave them out or just play the 'wrong' notes? So confusing! There must have been so many concerts and recordings with these notes omitted or played just plain wrong if that is the case. :?


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2015 1:26 pm 
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Alepax wrote:
At a pinch, I can lip down to an F, but with so little volume as to be virtually useless.

Just one more possibility. The horn players in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra are professionals and highly skilled. I have observed that professional horn players will always find a way to play whatever has been written down for them to play. That's the difference.


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 Post subject: Re: Vienna horns
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2015 4:30 pm 
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Well, last night I viewed a DVD of the VPO playing Mahler 3 under Bernstein in 1972. Hns 1-7 (and bumper) were playing on unmodified conventional Vienna horns crooked in F. Hn 8 was playing what looks like a Bb single with 5 (rotary) valves. So, it looks like this fellow is the only one equipped to play the low "F"s and "E"s.


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