Guichard Natural Horn

Cor Naturel Guichard Natural horns with spare tones or inventive horns. The natural horn is not a chromatic instrument. This form of instrument appears at the beginning of the 18th century. The length of the tube can be modified by the interchangeability of tones, small pieces of tube of various lengths which are inserted between the mouthpiece and the instrument. This instrument has a tuning slide in the center. We owe this addition to the horn player Haempel during the development of the "solo horn" with the help of the Dresden organbuilder Johann Werner, in the middle of the 18th century. The natural horn is used during the classical period and the entire romantic period to play Mozart, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Félix Mendelssohn, Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms. Some instrument makers invented the grasshopper horn. It was a horn that you could play either just without the valves, or using the valves, then you added the valves. The denominations are numerous: piston horn, French horn, natural horn, simple horn, invention horn, solo horn, grasshopper horn designate the same type of instrument with singularities relating to the history and evolutions of the 'instrument. Elder nephew Courtois, Raoux Auguste, Charles Kretzschmann, Halary, Guichard, Protin, Tabard in Lyon, Gambaro, Piatet, Labbaye, Uhlmann, participated in the evolution towards the valve horn as we know it today. Then the Selmer house, and Lucien Thévet soloist at the Paris Opera 1941 / 1974.