La trompa de la salsa: the role of the French Horn in Afro-Cuban music
(2024)
author(s): Ana Muñoz Koniarska
published in: KC Research Portal
Discovering Afro-Cuban music as a classical musician was an outstanding moment in my career. Realizing how unusual it is for French Horns to be involved in this style inspired me to start this research and further develop my skills.
Even though it is usual to find trombones and trumpets in Afro-Cuban music ensembles, it is challenging to find examples with French Horn players. Currently, the most successful horn player in this genre is Sarah Willis, who fell in love with Cuban rhythms and decided to share them by creating innovative albums.
The methodology of this research includes a literature review of existing works related to Afro-Cuban music, interviews with experienced players in this field, and practical demonstrations in video form. The theoretical framework provides a brief review of Afro-Cuban music from its origins until today, paying special attention to the practically non-existent presence of French Horn players in this field. The practical framework collects data on the challenges that a classical French Horn player may encounter when playing this music and offers possible solutions.
As a result of this study, I now have a better understanding of this style and why the horn is not usually included in it. Also, having the experience of playing Afro-Cuban music as a classical musician has clarified the differences and difficulties of approaching this music but more so how it can nourish my musical practice with new skills.
The chosen format of presentation will be a public exposition of the results of the research.
The use of the horn in the late orchestral works by Robert Schumann
(2023)
author(s): Márton Kóródi
published in: KC Research Portal
When I played a Schumann piece, Genoveva Overture, for the first time, I was wondering, because there were Ventilhorn and Waldhorn parts. I could not imagine what his idea was when he wrote for four horns, but still used two different kinds of the same instrument. Did he want to express something with this set-up? Beside this, I did not understand why he, and other romantic composers, use so much transposition when they had already a completely chromatic instrument.
As I started to get to know and play the natural horn, it was getting clearer what his intention could have been. Why he used an ‘ancient’ instrument, though he could compose for four chromatic horns. This made me even more interested, and I also got more questions and hypotheses about the topic, for what I wanted to find an answer.
In my research, I tried to get to know the use of the horn in the middle of the 19th century. I wanted to get familiar with the contemporaries’ imagination about the old and new instrument, and with the way how they used them. Then, with this knowledge, I analysed Schumann’s orchestral works, especially the horn parts, and tried to find out if the results are matching with the background research.
My aim was too, show the horn players, that the romantic horn playing is not only about the ‘holy’ valve horn, but something more complex and colourful.
The horn of Leutgeb and Mozart : investigation and experimentation
(2021)
author(s): Nicolas Roudier
published in: KC Research Portal
A lot of researches have been conducted on Mozart's work and how to play it, including by myself. Eventhough those works helped our comprehension of this music, we still don't know what particular horn did Leutgeb (the composer's hornist friend) play at the time ; and never have I ever encountered a practical experimentation on such an instrument yet. XVIIIth century horns are rare and never played : every recorded performance of Mozart’s music on hand-horn is played on a copy or a XIXth century horn, which is historically inaccurate. We know a lot of theory ; but no one has gone any further yet. My goal is to step in the unknown : first, to get as close as possible to the horn Leutgeb and Mozart knew ; then, find and play a historical horn from Mozart’s time, and see what impact it has on the playing and the music.
From Aural Teaching to Musical Literacy in the Elementary Horn Class
(2017)
author(s): Klaske de Haan
published in: KC Research Portal
Name: Klaske de Haan
Main Subject: Master Music Education According to the Kodály concept.
Research Supervisors: Suzanne Konings and Herman Jeurissen
Title of research:
From Aural Teaching to Musical Literacy in the Elementary Horn Class
First steps to a Kodály inspired horn method.
Research Question:
How to develop a methodology for the beginning horn player, from an aural approach to musical literacy?
Summary of Results:
The Netherlands and Germany are almost the only countries where children start playing the B flat horn instead of the F horn because of the rich culture of wind bans. There are almost no horn methods based on the harmonics of the B flat horn. The traditional instrumental music lesson is mainly based on reproducing: a certain image on paper matches a fitting fingering thus producing the matching sound. When the sound is not matching the image than the teacher corrects this sound. I noticed that the children could play well when playing by themselves, but when they played together with other instruments they could easily play the whole phrase on the wrong pitch (wrong harmonics) but with the right fingerings. The horn is an instrument based on harmonic overtone series. Finding the logical steps on the valves of the horn is very difficult. Woodwind players have a logical system on the instrument playing diatonic series like do re mi. For the horn, with 3 valves, there is not a logical sequence playing diatonic series. This made me realize that some changes in the methodology are necessary for the horn to make an aural approach more logical for the beginning horn player. It also did me realize how extremely important it is for the young horn player to develop the inner hearing very well and make the logical steps from sound to symbol. My research paper investigates the possibilities to develop musical literacy in the horn lesson but also in the instrumental group lesson with transposing instruments. My main conclusion is that it is very important to make singing and moving a part of the horn lesson in order to develop inner hearing in relation to the horn. In that way the music will be understand and musical literacy can be developed.
Biography:
Klaske de Haan studied horn at The Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and at the Fontys Conservatoire in Tilburg with Herman Jeurissen. She graduated in 2000 for her diploma Uitvoerend Musicus.
As a free lance horn player Klaske worked with several professional orchestras in the Netherlands for example The Residentie Orchestra. Klaske is a horn teacher at the Music school, Scholen in de Kunst, in Amersfoort and she works at the Royal Conservatoire at The Hague with BASIS. A new music program for young wind players.
From 2014 Klaske specializes in Music education and pedagogy by attending several course such as “muziek als vak”.