D' Dieß'ner alphorn players

The alphorn or alpenhorn is a brass instrument, consisting of a natural wooden horn of conical bore, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere. A brass instrument is a Musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular Resonator. On Brass instruments the mouthpiece is the part of the instrument which is placed upon the player's Lips The purpose of the mouthpiece is a Resonator, which The Swiss Alps (Schweizer Alpen Alpes suisses Alpi svizzere Alps svizras are the central portion of the Alps Mountain range that lies within Similar wooden horns were used in most mountainous regions of Europe, from Sweden to the Romanian Carpathians. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians (Carpaţi Czech, Polish and Slovak: Karpaty; Ukrainian: Карпати

Origins

Documented records of alpine societies using signal horns date back to a 2nd century Roman mosaic fragment in Orbe, depicting a shepherd blowing an instrument shaped like a bucina. The 2nd century is the period from 101 to 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Art History Mosaics of the 4th century BC are found in the Macedonian palace-city of Aegae, and they enriched the floors of Hellenistic Orbe (Urba Orbach is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud. Bučina is name of several locations in the Czech Republic. The Buccina (also Bucina) is a Brass instrument The Acta Sanctorum report how, in 397 AD, the Val di Non's pagan inhabitants responded to the arrival of three Christian missionaries, by using an uspecified tuba to convene the community, and later sacrificing one of the missionaries, by beating him to death with axes while sounding the tuba at him. Acta Sanctorum ( Acts of the Saints ' is an encyclopedic text in 68 folio volumes of documents examining the lives of Christian saints in essence a critical Events By Place Asia The Xiongnu occupy the Gansu area in China. The Val di Non ( Italian: Val di Non, also Valle di Non; Nones: Val de Nòn; German: Nonstal, also Nonsberg

Swiss farmer calling his cattle in the Bernese Oberland

For a long time, scholars believed that the alphorn had been derived from the Roman-Etruscan lituus, because of their resemblance in shape, and because of the word liti, meaning Alphorn in the dialect of Obwalden. The word lituus originally meant a curved staff (" Crozier " or trumpet in the ancient Latin language and is used with several meanings in English Obwalden (German) is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the centre of Switzerland There is no documented evidence for this theory, however, and, the word liti was probably borrowed from 16th-18th century writings in Latin, where the word lituus could describe various wind instruments, such as the horn, the crumhorn, or the cornett. The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the modern-day horn, and is differentiated by its lack of valves The crumhorn is a Musical instrument of the Woodwind family most commonly used during the Renaissance period The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early wind instrument dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner used the words lituum alpinum for the first known detailed description of the alphorn in his De raris et admirandis herbis in 1555. Konrad Gessner (Conrad Gessner Conrad Geßner Conrad von Gesner Conradus Gesnerus Conrad Gesner 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) The oldest known document using the German word Alphorn is a page from a 1527 account book from the former Cistercian abbey St. Urban near Pfaffnau mentioning the payment of two Batzen for an itinerant alphorn player from the Valais. Pfaffnau is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. The batzen was a coin produced by Bern, Switzerland from the 15th century until the mid-19th century The Valais ( German:) is one of the 26 Cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its

17th-19th century collections of alpine myths and legends suggest that alphorn-like instruments had frequently been used as signal instruments in village communities since medieval times or earlier, sometimes substituting for the lack of church bells. A church bell is a bell which is rung in a (especially Christian) church either to signify the Hour or the time for worshippers to go to Surviving artefacts, dating back to as far as ca. AD 1400, include wooden labrophones in their stretched form, like the alphorn, or coiled versions, such as the '"Büchel" and the "Allgäuisches Waldhorn" or "Ackerhorn". A brass instrument is a Musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular Resonator. The alphorn's exact origins remain indeterminate, and the ubiquity of horn-like signal instruments in valleys throughout Europe may indicate a long history of cross influences regarding their construction and usage.

Construction

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.

A Swiss playing alphorn near a mountain lake

The alphorn 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 alphorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwyz, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, measures 8 ft. The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design housing a permanent collection in length and has a straight tube.

The well-known Ranz des Vaches is the traditional melody of the alphorn 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. Johannes Brahms ( pronounced ˈbʁaːms (May 7 1833 &ndash April 3 1897 was a German Composer The Symphony No 1 in C minor Op 68 is a Symphony written by Johannes Brahms.

The Swiss alphorn varies in shape according to the locality, being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland. Michael Praetorius mentions an alphorn-like instrument under the name of Hölzern Trummet (wooden trumpet) in Syntagma Musicum (Wittenberg, 1615-1619; Pl. Michael Praetorius (probably February 15 1571 &ndash February 15 1621 was a German Composer, organist, and writer about Music. VIII).

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 Ferenc Farkas

References

• Bachmann-Geiser, Brigitte, Das Alphorn: Vom Lock- zum Rockinstrument. Johann Georg Leopold Mozart ( November 14, 1719 &ndash May 28, 1787) was a composer conductor teacher and violinist Jean Daetwyler ( January 24, 1907, Basel — June 4, 1994, Sierre) was a Swiss Composer and Musician Ferenc Farkas (December 15 1905 in Nagykanizsa – October 10 2000 in Budapest) was a Hungarian composer Paul Haupt Berne, 1999. ISBN 3-258-05640-4

External links

• Alphorn-Composer, in German
• Jacaranda Ensemble
• Swiss Alphorn Players, in German
• Rocky Mountain Alphorns, in English
• Alphorngruppe Chrystal, in German