When I first started to write this thesis, I already had some preconcived ideas about what an XVIIIth century horn could bring me. I somewhat expected it to show me things that could not be done on an other instrument, or the other way around ; I expected it to show me a different way of playing Mozart. But in the end, the 1760 Kerner only showed me why we should play such an instrument for Mozart ! The instrument himself made the music better and gave it the character that we are always looking for on other instruments. I was expecting it to show me how one should play Mozart, but instead it made me understand why one should play Mozart with this particular horn.
But even when playing on a different horn, we can still be inspired by the esthetic suggested by this Kerner. Brightness, definition and articlulation, lightness and elegance, fluid legato, are the key words ; to dare to be looking for interesting phrasing, a more « spoken » horn, and cherish this clarity of sound, rather than to be looking for a dark, modern-ish sound, as I sometimes did before.
Thus, even if the results are somehow different from what I expected them to be, this experimentation not only enlighted me on some aspects of playing Mozart, it also completed the prileminary historical investigation on the XVIIIth century horn and what kind of instrument Leutgeb may have played.