Complete music for horn and piano

Abstract

During Czernys lifetime the fortepiano began to look and sound much more like today's piano. It still had fewer notes and was lighter, being made of a much higher proportion of wood than our modern iron-framed instruments. Much ¡s written about the improved legato possible with the newly developing keyboard actions of this time. As we can tell from these pieces, Czerny was a composer who took advantage of many technical advances, both mechanical and physical. The fortepiano used here was built in 1839 by the Viennese maker Johann Baptist Streicher. He was the son of Nanette Streicher - a friend of Beethoven and one of the most eminent piano-builders of her time. In 1823 Johann became her partner in the business and the firm continued its fine reputation after Nanette's death in 1833 and on throughout the nineteenth century. (Johann's second wife, Frederike Müller. became a student of Chopin.) This particular instrument has a compass of 6V2 octaves (CC-g4) and a single-escapement Viennese action (patented by Johann) with leather-covered hammers. There is no iron incorporated within the case construction and the outside is covered in French walnut. The instrument was restored by Edwin Beunk and Johan Wennink of Enschede, Holland. Similarly, during Czerny's lifetime. the horn was undergoing a transition which would result in different types of valve being added to its body in different parts of Europe. The 'natural horn' is a term used to describe a horn without valves and is a length of gradually expanding conical brass tubing ranging in length from three to six metres and coiled into circular form. Its length determines the key and pitch. so to allow music to be written in different keys, different lengths of coiled tubing called crooks can be added to the body of the instrument. The crooks most commonly used for solos were F, E, E fíat and D - the most sonorous keys - but Czerny only calis for F and E (about four metres long).

Around the middle of the eighteenth century. horn players began to put their right hand into the bell of the instrument. When the tubing is closeó off it has the result of lowering the piten, so that the natural harmonios (the only notes available until that time) can be altered to what Czerny referred to as 'the artificial notes'. The result was that the horn could play better in tune and produce many more notes, particularly in the middle register. This type of instrument is often called a 'hand horn'. The technique of playing it became more and more elabórate until the invention of valves during the 1820s. The horn parts in the Brillante Fantasien and the Andante e Polacca require the instrument to play in many keys outside its natural tonality of F (First and Third Fantasies) or E (Second Fantasy and Andante e Polacca). so an advanced hand-stopping technique is required to obtain all the notes (and fast enough!). In particular there are some notes which have to be made to work' rather more on some natural horns than others. because they do not have a secure centre. As composers began to be more adventurous about the use of these notes, instrument manufacturers tried to overeóme these problems through the use of differently profiled bells on the horn to accommodate varying shapes and positions of the right hand. Not surprisingly. therefore, a natural horn from 1780 may not facilítate these notes as well as one from 1830. The horns chosen for this recording reflect the type of instrument available in Austria in the fjrst half of the nineteenth century. The Viennese valved horn may not be the same 'cylinder horn' that Berlioz witnessed Lewy using in Dresden in 1843. but nevertheless it has cylinders and is a type made in Austria since the 1830s which retains many of the characteristics of the natural horn from that área. The natural horn is by Engelbert Schmid. made in Germany in 1997. after Ignaz Lorenz, Linz, Austria. The valved horn is by Antón Dehmal. Vienna. circa 1885.