The alphorn (German: Alphorn, Alpenhorn; French: cor des Alpes; Italian: corno alpino) is a traditional lip-reedwind instrument. It consists of a very long straight wooden natural horn, with a length of 3 to 4 metres (9.8 to 13 feet), a conical bore and a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece. Traditionally the alphorn was made in one piece from the trunk of a pine.[2] Modern alphorns are usually made in three detachable sections for easier transport and handling, carved from blocks of spruce.[3] The alphorn is used by rural communities in the Alps. Similar wooden horns were used for communication in most mountainous regions of Europe, from the Alps to the Carpathians.[2]
The alphorn may have developed from instruments like the lituus, a similarly shaped Etruscan instrument of classical antiquity, although there is little documented evidence of a continuous connection between them. A 2nd century Roman mosaic, found in Boscéaz, depicts a shepherd using a similar straight horn. The use of long signal horns in mountainous areas throughout Europe and Asia may indicate a long history of cultural cross-influences regarding their construction and usage.[2]
The first documented use of the German word Alphorn is in a payment recorded in the 1527 accounts ledger of Saint Urban's Abbey in Pfaffnau. Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner used the words lituum alpinum for the first known detailed description of the alphorn, in his De raris et admirandis herbis (1555); in his time, the word lituus was used for several other wind instruments, like the horn, crumhorn, or cornett. In the early 17th century, music scholar Michael Praetorius in his treatise Syntagma Musicum (1614–1620) depicts an alphorn-like instrument he called a Hölzern Trummet ("wooden trumpet"), noting they are used by shepherds.[4]
From the 17th to 19th century, alphorns were used in rural areas of the Alps, for signalling between high pastures across the valleys and to communities on the valley floor. The alphorn sounds can carry for several kilometres, and were even used to collect together dispersed herds. Although use by herdsmen had waned by the early 19th century, a revival of interest in the musical qualities of the instrument followed by the end of the century, and the alphorn became important in tourism, and inspired Romantic composers such as Beethoven and Gustav Mahler to add alphorn, or traditional alphorn melodies, to their pieces.[2]
Construction and qualities
Alphorn bell detail
The alphorn is carved from solid softwood, usually pine or spruce. Traditionally, the alphorn maker would find a tree growing on a slope and bent at the base providing the curved shape for the bell. The long trunk would be cut in half longways, the bore hollowed out, then glued and bound back together with outer layers of stripped bark. Modern instruments are made in several sections for more convenient handling and transport, each turned and bored from solid blocks of spruce. An integrated cup-shaped mouthpiece was traditionally carved into the narrow end, while modern instruments have a separate removable mouthpiece carved from hard wood.[2]
An alphorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwyz, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, measures 8 feet (2.4m) in length and has a straight tube. The Swiss alphorn varies in shape according to the locality, being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland.[4]
The alphorn is a simple tube with no lateral openings or means of adjusting the pitch, so only the notes of the natural harmonic series are available.[4] As with other natural labrosones, some of the notes do not correspond to the Western equal temperedchromatic scale, particularly the 7th and 11th partials.
Accomplished alphornists can command a range of nearly three octaves, consisting of the 2nd through the 16th partials. The availability of the higher tones is due in part to the relatively small diameter of the bore of the mouthpiece and tubing in relation to the overall length of the horn.
The well-known "Ranz des Vaches" (score; audio[dead link]) is a traditional Swiss melody often heard on the alphorn. The song describes the time of bringing the cows to the high country at milk making time.[clarification needed]Rossini introduced the "Ranz des Vaches" into his masterpiece William Tell, along with many other melodies scattered throughout the opera in vocal and instrumental parts that are well-suited to the alphorn. Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann that the inspiration for the dramatic entry of the horn in the introduction to the last movement of his First Symphony was an alphorn melody he heard while vacationing in the Rigi area of Switzerland. For Clara's birthday in 1868 Brahms sent her a greeting that was to be sung with the melody.
Trutruca, wind instrument played mainly amongst the Mapuche people of Chile and Argentina; produces a sound that is loud and severe, with few tonal variations
↑ Vitaliev, Vitali (11 October 2016). "The technology of Alphorn design". eandt.theiet.org/. E&T (Engineering & Technology). Retrieved 8 December 2021.
Further reading
Bachmann-Geiser, Brigitte, Das Alphorn: Vom Lock- zum Rockinstrument. Paul Haupt, Berne, 1999. ISBN3-258-05640-4
Franz Schüssele, Alphorn und Hirtenhorn in Europa, book and CD with 63 sound samples available at Alphorn-Center, ISBN3-927-78121-5
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