Camille Saint-Saëns – Morceau de concert Op. 94 for Horn
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) composed his Morceau de concert Op. 94 in 1887, producing versions for horn and piano and for horn and orchestra in quick succession. The autograph piano part is dated October 1887, while the orchestral version is marked as completed on 2 November of the same year. On the score, the work originally bore the title Fantaisie, later crossed out. It was premiered on 7 February 1891 at the Salle Pleyel in Paris by its dedicatee, Henri Chaussier.
Saint-Saëns knew Chaussier well: as early as 1882 he had dedicated his Romance Op. 67 to the horn player, who was then principal horn in Benjamin Bilse’s orchestra in Berlin. The two musicians subsequently corresponded from time to time. Although not opposed to innovation in principle, Chaussier remained committed to the tradition of the natural horn and held its playing technique in high regard. He maintained that older music should be played as it was written, using the natural-horn crooks prescribed by the composers, which affect the tone colour. In Berlin he had also come to know the drawbacks of the valve horn, used almost exclusively in Germany, and out of this experience he developed the idea of a non-transposing instrument:
During a stay in Germany, in Mr Bilse’s orchestra, I was obliged to use the valve horn. I therefore studied it closely, and I was often bothered by absurd-looking transpositions, since I had to conform to the German custom of playing all music – including historical music – on the F crook, while the use of the hand in the bell has been completely abolished in that country. This often gave me the idea of a horn that plays the sounding pitch, […].
On 21 November 1886, Saint-Saëns took up his pen in the weekly music journal Le Ménestrel to defend the system of a non-transposing instrument developed by Chaussier:
Mr Henri Chaussier, a horn player whose virtuoso talent is widely known, informed me some time ago of his reform project for wind instruments, namely the possibility of abolishing the system of transposing instruments. I strongly encouraged him in this aim, which coincides with my own views. For a long time I have regarded this practice as a barbarous anomaly that must disappear in time. I therefore take the liberty of drawing the attention of the musical public to the reform that has been undertaken. […] Mr Chaussier’s instruments are brought back to C and play – like the piano or the violin – in sounding notation. This advantage will be readily understood by everyone.
For this reason, “the horn part is notated without transposition, in the tenor clef, one octave higher than sounding”, as a comment on the first page of the manuscript states. “It can be performed on the chromatic (valve) horn” – but it was actually conceived for Chaussier’s omnitonic horn.
Built by François Millerau, this Cor Chaussier is meant to be played both like a natural horn – with right-hand corrections in the bell – and like a valve horn. Three Perinet valves are operated as usual by the fingers of the left hand, with an additional cylindrical valve operated by the thumb. At first glance, the instrument differs little from a valve horn of its day; the differences lie in the proportions of the valves. Two valves lower the pitch – the first by a whole tone and the fourth by two and a half tones – while two others raise it, the second by a semitone and the third by two whole tones. The underlying idea is that combining these valves makes it possible to achieve practically all the transpositions required in the orchestra.
The instrument is now part of the collection of the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels. In 2009–2012 it was reconstructed by Egger Blechblasinstrumentenbau (Basel) in collaboration with the Bern University of the Arts, as part of a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The idea behind Chaussier’s horn, and behind the Morceau de concert written for it, is to combine valve playing with hand-in-bell technique, which opens up numerous combinations and tonal nuances. Further information is available at www.hkb-interpretation.ch/projekte/cor-chaussier.
An interesting, if anecdotal, detail: in the manuscript of the work, which is notated largely in abbreviated form, Saint-Saëns rewrote the shape of the main theme at the last minute (or perhaps even after the premiere?). The lower version, as we know it today, replaced the crossed-out upper one:
Claude Maury / Daniel Allenbach, 2014
Listening example
Camille Saint-Saëns, Morceau de concert Op. 94 for Horn