Cor anglais

The cor anglais is a musical instrument with wind of the family of the wood, with double Anche and of conical Perce . It is a Hautbois, but it is in F , with the perfect fifth lower (viola of the family) . Like his/her little brother the Oboe de amore, its house is pyriforme (the pear shape) and its Anche is connected to the body top by a conical tube and curve called bottle.

The orthography (horn angle, horn anglese, horn angles, horn rebated joint…) and the origin of its name makes run much ink and leave perplexed more than one organologist:

* the qualification English coming from a confusion made with French visual designation angle (curved or bent),

* the reference to the instruments of English origin ,

* assimilation with true a horn, semicircular, of hunter or forester used in Great Britain,

* a bad translation of Englisches Horn by cor anglais instead of horn angelica as old German (" England" = England, " englisches" = English but " Engel" = angel, " engelhaft" = angelica),

* confusion with the oboe of hunting (oboe da caccia), in F also, curve, with the very widened metal house,

*…

In short! Like the oboe, its origin comes from the transformation of the consorts of Chalemie S and oboe of Poitou by the families Hotteterre and Philidor in the middle of the 17th century. The first sizes of oboe in F from which the cor anglais goes down directly were right and of conical houses then pyriforme; certain violin makers, especially German, gave him a form curved like the Cornet with disappearing book, others put a " angle" between the body top and the body of bottom, others still made it evolve to the oboe of hunting (oboe da caccia)… but at the end of the 19th century, its borer becomes again definitively right and its invoice similar to that of the oboe models conservatory.

Already present in works of Jommelli as of 1741, Haydn employs it in its divertimentos in 1746, and Gluck integrates it in the Orchestre of Alceste in 1767.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel dedicates a concerto virtuoso to him, with the mode of the Hautbois, without the aspect of charming banter which is attached to its acute equivalent.

Chopin, in the second movement of sound First Concerto for piano COp 11 , employs it like méditatif counter-melody and concerning, but without insipidness, with its barytonant stamp.

Berlioz, in the fantastic Symphony, the fact of dialoguing with the Oboe at the beginning of the third movement (the " scene with the champ"), the cor anglais being the first to be played. Oboes and cor anglais are also answered in the " serenade of a mountain dweller of the Abruzzi to his maîtresse" of Harold in Italy. Lastly, the broad topic of the Opening of the Roman Carnaval is also entrusted to the cor anglais.

Verdi uses it in the extract " Era piu calmo" of its opera Otello, entrusting not only one main role among the orchestral mass but also several passages in solo to him.

It is him which interprets, in the second movement of the Symphonie in minor D of Franck, the solo succeeding the long passage in Pizzicati.

Wagner uses it in Tristan and Isolde to hold the Leitmotiv attached to von König Markes Land , expression of a nostalgia of the ground of Ireland (at the origins of the myth countered of immortality), of a defamatory tender to the winner (Tristan) who leads it as cattle to another which did not acquire any right on it (Marke), of the advertisement of the sufferings to come on this foreign ground.

Ravel entrusts a beautiful song to him, in solo or dialog with the Piano and the flute, in the central movement adagio assai of the Concerto for piano in G major .

Rodrigo entrusts to him the solo of the beginning in the famous central movement adagio of the concerto of Aranjuez.

the “legend” of the 2nd movement of the symphony n° 9 known as “of the New World” of Dvořák also uses the cor anglais to sing the famous Aria.

Sibelius associates it with the swan of Tuonela , guard of the kingdom of deaths, in the second part of the legends of Lemminkäinen.

Many of other occurrences would be to raise. One was satisfied to quote some of the announced first and to evoke some uses emblematic of the instrument.

Random links:

Cor anglais

Related articles