Cor anglais
woodwind musical instrument
The cor anglais (UK: , US: or original French: [kɔʁ ɑ̃ɡlɛ]; plural: cors anglais), or English horn (mainly North America), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto oboe in F.
The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument). This means that music for the cor anglais is written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B♭ key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E3 (written B♮) below middle C to C6 two octaves above middle C. Some versions have a Low B♭ key to extend the range down one more note to sounding E♭3.
Description and timbre
The pear-shaped bell (called Liebesfuß) of the cor anglais gives it a more covered timbre than the oboe, closer in tonal quality to the oboe d'amore. Whereas the oboe is the soprano instrument of the oboe family, the cor anglais is generally regarded as the alto member of the family, and the oboe d'amore—pitched between the two in the key of A—as the mezzo-soprano member. The cor anglais is perceived to have a more mellow and plaintive tone than the oboe. The difference in sound results primarily from a wider reed and a conical bore that expands over a greater distance than the oboe's; although darker in tone and lower in pitch than the oboe, its sound is distinct from (though naturally blends with) the sound of the bassoon family. Its appearance differs from the oboe in that the instrument is notably longer, the reed is attached to a slightly curved metal tube called the bocal, or crook, and the bell has a bulbous shape ("Liebesfuß").
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This entry incorporates text from “Cor anglais” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.