belonged to that founding generation which established the fame of French hornists and passed it on through a school of its own. Duvernoy was born in Montbéliard on 16 October 1765 and came to the orchestra of the Comédie-Italienne as a hornist in 1788. In 1797 he moved to the Paris Opéra, where he served as solo hornist from 1799 onwards. In 1801 he, along with the other principal wind players, was relieved of normal opera duties so that he could concentrate on his solo work. From this time on he also played in the “Chapelle-musique”, which was re-established by Napoleon Bonaparte, said to have been an admirer of Duvernoy. From 1795 he was also, alongside as many as eight other hornists at times, a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire de Musique, where several different schools of horn playing developed. While there had always been a division into 1st and 2nd horn, the hornist Rudolphe advocated a comprehensive use of the whole range, whereas Kenn and, later especially, Dauprat stood for a clear separation into cor alto and cor basso. Duvernoy, in the truest sense of the word, took the middle path: although he too distinguished, for instance in his printed horn method, between high and low horn and recommended differently sized mouthpieces, in solo playing he advocated the “cor mixte”. This meant forgoing the particularly high and low notes – the middle register (roughly one and a half octaves) was rarely left, with more emphasis placed instead on a singing tone. In 1816 Duvernoy retired, though he continued to hold the post of solo hornist at the Chapelle-musique until 1830. He died in Paris on 19 July 1838. Duvernoy’s works (12 concertos for horn and numerous chamber pieces) were printed not only in Paris but also appeared in Germany, published by houses such as Simrock and Breitkopf.
3rd Divertissement for Piano and Horn
This work was written as part of a series of divertissements around 1822. In 2008 his 4th Divertissement was the set piece at the Concours International de Cor in Paris – a good occasion to also make his other chamber music works available.
