Vienna horn
type of musical horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria, for playing orchestral or classical music
The Vienna horn (German: Wiener Horn) is a type of musical horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria, for playing orchestral or classical music. It is used throughout Vienna, including the Vienna Philharmonic and Wiener Staatsoper.
History
During the nineteenth century, a number of experiments were made in adding valves to the natural horn to enable it to play chromatically without the need for hand-stopping. These experiments included adding piston valves (as used in modern trumpets) to a single F horn. The horn was still crooked, by inserting other tubing, to re-tune the instrument for music written in base keys other than F.
Description
The Vienna horn uses a unique form of valve, patented by Josef Riedl and Josef Kail in 1823 as the Doppelrohr-Schubventile ("double-piston valve"). It is similar to the standard piston valve, but it is not pushed directly inward. The Viennese maker Leopold Uhlmann patented in 1830 a mechanism of long push-rods that reach across to connect to each lever key via a clock spring, as with rotary valves (patented shortly afterwards by Riedl in 1835). The mechanism allows either a fast or slow change in the valve, by controlling lever speed. The valve allows the air to flow straight when the valves are not actuated. When a valve is engaged, each cylinder redirects the air stream 90 degrees in one bend, lessening the resistance felt by the player.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vienna horn” 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.