Russian horns

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A group from the Russian Horn Chapel from St. Petersburg plays in front of the chessboard fountain in Peterhof Park (2008).

Russian horns are brass instruments with a conical tube, each of which can only produce a single tone. That is why the Russian horns are generally played in groups of different lengths. Initially, the single-tone pipes, which, according to their shape, belong to the natural trumpets , were used as hunting horns in dog hunting or as signal horns in military operations. Russian nobles and rulers discovered the special listening experience and had entire music groups put together to perform on special occasions. After being forgotten for decades, the Russian horns found renewed distribution from the 1970s, especially in Germany and Russia .

history

Origin from Russia

Colored engraving of a Russian orchestra with more than 20 horn players from the early 19th century

Centuries ago, hunters in Russia used simple signal horns made of natural materials in different lengths and thus in different pitches when hunting with a pack of dogs. In 1751, Court Marshal S. K. Naryschkin from the then Russian capital Petersburg commissioned the Czech instrument maker and court conductor Jan Anton Mareš (1719–1794; also written by Johann Anton Maresch) to build a large number of these horns, thus putting together a complete orchestra of Russian horn players could be. An important prerequisite for this was a constructive improvement of the tubes for reproducing semitones. The wind instrument bands put together in this way could contain up to 91 horns, which were played by more than 40 wind players. Tsarina Elisabeth was so impressed by the horn music that she immediately ordered her own horn court orchestra. Russian buglers soon appeared at all state events, they were an important part of the ceremonies of the Russian ruling house. Thus, the Russian horns gradually spread as musical instruments, there were soon more than a dozen horn orchestras, also in Moscow and other cities.

In addition to the sound and the extraordinarily powerful music, the horn choirs , as the orchestras were called, impressed above all with the number of players. Horn music experienced a climax on the occasion of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II on May 14, 1896.

Numerous foreign guests also heard the special music, now also known as tsar music , and were also enthusiastic. In the 19th century, Russian horn corps toured all of Europe and gave concerts. The music continued to spread. The Russian horn choirs only disappeared with the advent of metal wind instruments, which could play multi-tone melodies through valves and other technical improvements. Russian chroniclers found a reference to the last public performance of a Russian horn orchestra in 1915.

Horns of a Russian orchestra in the museum

A number of historical horns are on display in the St. Petersburg Music Museum.

Well-known musicians composed their own pieces for the Russian horn choirs at an early stage. However, the music groups were also able to play excerpts from well-known musical works.

Distribution in Germany

In 1824 the Freiberg mining captain von Herder had Russian horns procured for the Freiberg Bergmusikkorps , which he had reorganized . This was supported by the then local city cantor and head of the mountain music corps August Ferdinand Anacker . Anacker initially composed 12 parade marches especially for the new Russian horn ensemble. In 1832, the singspiel Der Bergmannsgruß followed , in which 13 such horns are provided. After a few years, the newer brass instruments replaced the Russian horns in the Saxony area. Until around 1850 they were still in use in the Saxon town of Pegau for blowing the tower .

In a publication about the composer Carl Maria von Weber from the middle of the 19th century, the use of Russian horns is described as follows:

“The Herr Principal lives there on the right, you can't be absent, hear music right away, just try out the Russian horn music, but no condition is open now. I assured him that I was very well conditioned myself, and headed for the house. What a hell of a spectacle was already brewing at me on the stairs, and how much more worried I was for my eardrums when I stepped into his room. In a circle of eight to ten boys, all of whom blew their horns, or at least held them as if they wanted to blow, stood the town musician, both hands armed with a powerful beat, stamped his feet and beat the beat with both of them Hands on a grand piano standing in front of him, and also sometimes on the heads of his pupils who were supposed to execute an overture composed by him in the style of Russian horn music, wherever a horn has a tone .... "

Russian horns in other countries

There is a book table of contents on the Internet with the reference to Russian horns in France .

Russian horns in the 20th and 21st centuries

After the end of the First World War , this type of choral music-making fell into oblivion in the entire previous area of ​​distribution. For the 750th anniversary of the mountain town of Freiberg in 1938, Freiberg musicians played on Russian horns for the last time. These original instruments are exhibited in the Freiberg City and Mining Museum. The town in the Ore Mountains Aue , founded in the 1960s Erzgebirgsensemble Aue discovered the Russian horns for his performances again. You have been an integral part of the ensemble's musician group since the 1970s. An appearance on the television program Melodies for Millions in 1992 with a small group of horn players from this ensemble brought these historical wind instruments back into people's consciousness. Around 1995 the performance brought an entry in the Guinness Book of Records . The Freiberg Bergmusikkorps Saxonia , which was founded in 1991 , had 19 Russian horns (pitches Es to g1) re-made by the brass instrument maker Ricco Kühn from Oederan in 1995 based on the samples from the museum . Since then, original compositions by Anacker have been performed at certain festivities based on existing original notes from the Freiberg and Brand-Erbisdorf museums. The Russian horns from Saxonia soon got an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

In 1999 a music enthusiast in the mining town of Oelsnitz also campaigned for the resurgence of music for Russian horns. Theo Nüßler had an 18-part set of Russian horns procured for the Oelsnitz brass band and, after initial difficulties with these horn players, also performed publicly. For some time the instruments were even loaned to Broadway in the USA .

In 2001, while researching in Russia , the Petersburg musician Sergei Pestschansky came across the musical instrument, which had been forgotten there for more than 90 years. He also had new Russian horns made by an instrument maker using existing materials. The shape of the new horns differs slightly from their museum models. Pestschansky won over other enthusiasts for the revival of the music performed on Russian horns. With the support of the Russian State University in St. Petersburg , Pestschansky founded the Russian Horn Capella in 2002 . A wind player now plays between two and five horns so that a group of musicians can play a complete piece of music. In total, by August 2008, the band had completed more than 300 public performances at home and abroad, including in Greece, Spain, France, Estonia, Poland and Germany. In the park of the summer residence of the Tsar in Peterhof , the 17 horn players delight visitors with their occasional appearances.

Design and style of play

The straight or L-shaped curved instrument is blown from the short side with a kettle mouthpiece . The tube is either a regular cone or it is initially strongly conical and then merges into a cylinder . This simple construction of the scale only produces the fundamental tone , and possibly the second natural tone above it, for making music. The Russian horns do not have a bell in the sense of common brass instruments. There is a movable and lockable ring at the sound opening, which enables diatonic coordination. The wind instruments are made of copper or brass sheet. In Germany there are some musical instrument makers who make these rare instruments manually and individually, such as a workshop in Markneukirchen , a music house in Leipzig , an instrument maker for brass instruments in Aalen and a music workshop in Lindau on Lake Constance.

The study collection of the Musical Instrument Museum in Leipzig contains some Russian horns from the Weißenfels town church , which were made in Russia around 1820.

literature

  • Brochure: Committed to tradition - musical instrument makers , 1983.
  • Herbert Heyde: Horns and Prongs . Leipzig 1982 (Musical Instrument Museum of the Karl Marx University Leipzig, Catalog Volume 5).
  • Franz Kirnbauer (Hrsg.): Russian horns in the mining of the Saxon Ore Mountains . Series Leonberger Green notebooks , tape 143. Vienna, Montan Verlag., 1973
  • Herbert Schramm, Heinz Bahnert: metal wind instruments. Florian Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 1998, ISBN 3-7959-0466-8

See also

  • Waza , orchestra with calabash trumpets in Sudan and Ethiopia

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Info booklet for a music CD: Russian Horn Capella , ed. 2008 by the Russian Horn Chapel with the support of the Russian State University AI Herzen from St. Petersburg.
  2. ↑ a b Homepage “Naturtonmusik” ; Retrieved September 24, 2009.
  3. ↑ Details on Russian horns and AF Anacker's compositions on bergmusikkorps-freiberg.de ( memento of the original from January 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Retrieved October 6, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bergmusikkorps-freiberg.de
  4. ^ Max Maria von Weber: Carl Maria von Weber. A picture of life . Volume 3, Leipzig; Ernst Keil (publisher), 1866.
  5. ↑ Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung, 35th year, p. XXVI ; Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig, 1833; Retrieved September 24, 2009
  6. ↑ Christa Zehrfeld: Joy of experimentation up to fearlessness. Miners' Night: Tilo Nüßler and the Oelsnitzer brass musicians often dare to try something new  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.freipresse.de  In: Freie Presse , September 2009; Retrieved September 24, 2009.
  7. ^ Photos of some public appearances by the Russian Horn Capella ; accessed on December 29, 2015.
  8. ^ Homepage of the Early Music Network ( Memento of January 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ); Retrieved September 24, 2009
  9. ↑ Homepage Musihaus Syhre in Leipzig ; Retrieved September 24, 2009.
  10. ↑ Website of the metal instrument makers Gamerdinger and Schittenhelm in Aalen ( Memento of the original from January 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on December 29, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blasinstrumente-gamerdinger.de
  11. ↑ Homepage Art Cabaret Monte Christo ; Retrieved September 24, 2009.
  12. ↑ Homepage Musikinstrumentenmuseum Leipzig (PDF file; 55 kB); Retrieved September 24, 2009
  13. ↑ Brochure musical instrument makers; here: pp. 57-68 “Metal instruments”. PDF , accessed September 24, 2009