"Another voice that sings": timbre, portamento and natural horn playing in France 1810s-1850s

Scott, Anneke May (2025). "Another voice that sings": timbre, portamento and natural horn playing in France 1810s-1850s. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

During the nineteenth century the horn transitioned from the natural horn, played using the right hand in the bell of the instrument to create non-harmonic notes, to the valve horn. The rate at which the newer instrument was assimilated varied throughout Europe, with the French championing the older instrument for longer than most other regions. This fact has often been accounted for as a result of the high standards of natural horn playing that had been developed in France thanks to practitioners such as Heinrich Domnich (1767–1844), Frédéric Duvernoy (1765–1838), Louis-François Dauprat (1781–1868) and, the central figure in this study, Jacques-François Gallay (1795–1864).

Gallay was to hold a number of prominent positions during his career, with the most important and influential being his role as cor solo (principal horn) at the fashionable Théâtre-Italien in Paris and his professorship at the Conservatoire. His performances are well documented, with many critics and fellow musicians praising him for his vocal style of performance. In Gallay’s own words the horn was “another voice that sings”.

In this thesis I pose the following question: if a horn player, such as Gallay, was renowned for his vocal approach to horn playing, what were the criteria of such vocality as valued by nineteenth-century practitioners, especially those associated with the Italian operatic style favoured in France from the 1810s to the 1850s? I argue that pedagogy of the period promoted the idea of first teaching how to play “correctly” (facilitating a literal interpretation of the score) prior to teaching the elements that comprise a “beautiful” performance (style, taste, ornamentation etc.) with students of all musical disciplines often instructed to learn the latter by emulating talented musicians, especially singers. This study further focuses on two essential aspects of vocal technique of the period: timbre and portamento.

The renaissance of the natural horn in the late twentieth century as part of the historically informed performance movement has based much of its scholarship on the horn players mentioned above. However, it has grown out of an aesthetic shaped by concepts of how the modern horn is played and how it should sound, with a priority on the even, homogenous timbre that the modern instrument is designed to achieve, an emphasis rooted in a modern concept of vocality rather than one representative of the nineteenth century.

I will trace Gallay’s career through a series of six operatic obligatos associated with him. Through these I explore a number of elements that can help inform interpretation of these solos, including interpretations arising from text, the performance practice of singers (including evidence from early recordings), and musical criticism of the period in order to establish that timbre and portamento were expressive devices common to both singers and horn players such as Gallay and should thus be re-established in our performance practice today.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):