Books › The instruments of the modern orchestra & early records of the precursors of the violin family, with over 500 illustrations and plates;, 1910 › scan 64
Scan 64
The instruments of the modern orchestra & early records of the precursors of the violin family, with over 500 illustrations and plates;, 1910
2 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 16. See the scan on archive.org.
1Quality of Tone.—The tone of the Cor Anglais is of the same penetrating quality as that of the oboe; the pitch is lower, but the tone sweeter and more melancholy, and often sounds like a wail. If the reader will bear in mind the quality of tone of the E and A strings of the violin when muted, it will assist him in distinguishing the English horn in the orchestra. This instrument, on account of its peculiar sweetness, is very suitable for pastoral music, and for expressing longing and tenderness, regrets or sweet memories, as in "Tristan and Isolde," in which opera it is extensively used. The following well-known passage in Act III. is played by the Cor Anglais, reinforced by the oboe, and sometimes by the clarinet also, according to the acoustic properties of the house. Wagner, however, not entirely satisfied with the Cor Anglais for representing the natural pipe of the peasant, which he imagined somewhat to resemble an "Alpenhorn," caused an instrument to be made specially for him, which he called "Holztrompete," or wooden trumpet. This instrument resembles the Cor Anglais in form, being a wooden conical tube with a small globular bell; it differs, however, in that it has neither holes nor keys, only one piston placed at a third of the distance between the mouthpiece and bell; it is played through a cup-shaped mouthpiece by overblowing, that is to say, that by the varied tension of the lips, and pressure of breath, the upper partials from the 4th to the 12th are produced. This instrument is in C, and is a non-transposing one. In the following example from "Tristan and Isolde," the upper notes are those written for the Cor Anglais, the lower for the Holztrompete, which are also the real sounds of the Cor Anglais.
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