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Alpenhorn or alphorn, a wind instrument, consisting of a natural wooden horn of conical bore, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere.
The alphorn is carved from solid softwood, generally spruce but sometimes pine. In former times the alphorn maker would find a tree bent at the base in the shape of an alphorn, but modern makers piece the wood together at the base. A cup-shaped mouthpiece carved out of a block of hard wood is added and the instrument is complete.
The alpenhorn has no lateral openings and therefore gives the pure natural harmonic series of the open pipe. The harmonics are the more readily obtained by reason of the small diameter of the bore in relation to the length. An alpenhorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwyz, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, measures 8 ft. in length and has a straight tube.
The well-known Ranz des Vaches is the traditional melody of the alpenhorn from French Switzerland. The song describes the time of bringing the cows to the high country at cheese making time. Rossini introduced the melody into his opera William Tell. Brahms was clear that the inspiration for the great melody that opens the last movement of his First Symphony (played in the orchestra by the horn) was an alphorn melody he heard in the Rigi area of Switzerland.
The Swiss alpenhorn varies in shape according to the locality, being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland. Michael Praetorius mentions the alpenhorn under the name of holzerni trummet in Syntagma Musicum (Wittenberg, 1615-1619).
This is the horn featured in Ricola cough drop commercials.
References
Music for Alphorn
Among music composed for the alphorn:
- Sinfonia Pastorella for Alphorn and String Orchestra by Leopold Mozart
- Concerto for alphorn and orchestra by Jean Daetwyler
- Concertino rustico by Ference Farkas
External links
Alphorn | Cor des Alpes | קרן האלפים | Alpenhoorn | アルプホルン | Alppitorvi | Alphorn
"Alphorn"