Re: Dennis Brain's horn [was: Period vs Modern instruments?]

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Peter T. Daniels
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>How could you possibly know what he "intended," especially since he was
>working intensively on the work with no less than Dennis (note spelling)
>Brain himself? (Unfortunately the only picture of him in Mitchell's
>*Pictures from a Life* is a studio portrait, with valve horn.) If he
>"forces" the player to use a different instrument for the bookends, is
>it mere coincidence that only the notes playable on a natural instrument
>are used in the passages?

No, but not because the notes are playable only on an instrument without
valves.  What he wanted was the natural tuning, especially of the 7th,
11th and (probably) 13th* "harmonics".  These notes are there on every
horn, and at the tuning he wanted if you can make it the length of a
horn in F (see an earlier post).

*  What he actually got was the 14th, because that's what Brain played
for the notated A, and what all players in the British tradition have
played since.  Britten was there, knew the difference, and didn't mind,
according to Pears.  You can hear the 13th on a fairly recent recording
by a Czech player.

> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Peter T. Daniels
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >> The BBC library have a recording of Mr Brain playing the Britten
> >> prologue (conducted by forgotten Harry Newstone) on his 1818 Raoux
and
> >> broadcast I think in 1954 or 1955.
> >
> >That would pretty much prove that the prologue (repeated at the end)
was
> >composed for the natural horn, and the wise horner won't use a valve
> >horn for it.
KCM:
> It proves nothing of the sort.  The Serenade was composed in 1943 and,
> IIRC, first performed in England.  The most usual design of horn in the
> UK at that time was an instrument in the French style, with fairly
> narrow bore and three piston valves*, most often, but not invariably,
> used with an F crook.  Brain's Raoux (which he used for all the
> movements of the Serenade) 

> How do you know that? Michael just told us that he was "forced" to use
> a different instrument for the prologue and epilogue.

If he wrote that (which I don't recall) he was wrong.  The Raoux had the
required notes.

If Brain had used a hand horn I am confident that that would have been
recorded at the time, because it would have been so unusual.

-- 
Ken Moore
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
pg composition student, University of Reading