John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
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@davep Thank you. I love this kind of stuff.
This is only vaguely related, but I told my dad, who's in his 90's and a bit deaf, that I'd been to a viola de gamba concert. As you probably know, this is a large viol that's played between the legs (gamba) like a cello.
Anyway, he assumed Viola da Gamba was a musician's name, and that she must be from Gambia. Which was kind of cute, although the conversation was very confusing until I figured out why he'd suddenly started talking about Africa.
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I might want to change the OP to be more precise in explaining that they're two entirely different instruments.
Nah, can't be bothered
@davep @renardboy revel in the chaos!
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@davep
It is French, modeled after the French style hunting horns that work over the shoulder instead of the smaller English that were written on the belt. America is the only country to call it French, the rest of the world just calls it the horn. -
John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
@davep this is wonderful. It reminds me of listening to Peter Ustinov’s audiobook of The Orchestra when I was a kid. His exact tone and words are etched in my brain: “but it isn’t English…and it isn’t a horn!”
https://youtu.be/NGlUkiaeKCw?t=1195
(Timestamped link) -
John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
"The Mountbatten family is a British family that originated as a branch of the German princely Battenberg family. The name was adopted by members of the Battenberg family residing in the United Kingdom on 14 July 1917, three days before the British royal family changed its name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. This was due to rising anti-German sentiment among the British public during World War I. The name is a direct Anglicisation of the German name Battenberg, which refers to a small town in Hesse. The Battenberg family was a morganatic line of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt, itself a cadet branch of the House of Hesse. "
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John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
@davep So this has nothing to do with needing a French Letter when you have the French Horn?
Not to mention French Fries.
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@pelicangut @davep Trying to remember the sign off ... "I'll soon make them wish they were dead. / I'll take up the tuba instead."
"I.... once had a whim and I had to obey it /
To buy a French Horn in a second-hand shop/
I polished it up and I started to play it /
In spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop ..." -
@pelicangut "Ill Wind"—Flanders's words sung to a slightly cut version, with cadenza, of the rondo finale of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major, K. 495. It has to be sung since Flanders's French horn was apparently stolen."
@Axomamma @pelicangut But he took up the tuba instead!
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@davep The US Congress calls it the Freedom Horn.
Anything to deny their existential debts to the French.
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@VioB @davep Except there is no place called "Torpenhow Hill". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo
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@davep my high school band director would call all instruments horns for some reason
@BTowersCoding @davep Horny?
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John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
@davep
We got many replies into this, and nobody mentioned hoe the original German view of angelic trumpets plays onto Pope Whoever's joke about some blonde English boys on sale in the slave market looking "angelic", and so sending some dude to establish a kirk in Canturbury. -
@davep Also see: Swiss Roll :-).
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@pelicangut @davep Gorn!
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@rethnor Apart from an ex-colleague of mine in England who played it in a proper orchestra
Maybe he was dumbing down for the plebs?
@davep I played the horn through college, originally went for a degree in music performance. I had to write a paper on the horn which is when I learned all this. I'll see if I can find some references.
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@davep My favorite one of this kind by far.
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@davep I played the horn through college, originally went for a degree in music performance. I had to write a paper on the horn which is when I learned all this. I'll see if I can find some references.
@davep thanks earnable machine!!
https://web.archive.org/web/20050829080505/http://boerger.org/horn/> Only in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. is the horn known as the "french" horn. Most European literature deems the instrument simply "horn" [cor, etc.] and most purists follow that nomenclature.
In short, yes they/we called it a French horn instead of a horn for the plebs.
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John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
Gotta love the wit of John Finnemore.
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John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
@davep and on the same subject….. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VjA6bA1qtfQ&ra=m
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John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
@davep Regarding the cor anglais, I was told a different story, which is apparently disproved now, but is still pretty popular. According to it, "anglais" is a deformation of "anglé", which sounds (approximately or exactly, depending on your accent) the same, and refers to the shape of the top metal tube (called the "bocal")
