The Horn of the Month June 2014 is a Descant French Horn designed and made by

Walter Lawson of Baltimore Maryland. The descant horn is used to aid the player

in performing in the high register of the horn’s range. Early experiments in building

descant horns included small single horns of a shorter length of tubing: Gumbert (1883)

making an f alto/descant and Alexander (1906) a descant in high G. The shorter length

of tubing would place the higher notes lower in the small instrument’s harmonic series.

Obviously, the pitches played are determined by the speed of the player’s vibration; so

your range is aided, but not determined by, the instrument. Accuracy and endurance

may be improved making the descant helpful in certain repertoire (esp. Baroque

Repertoire). The modern descant, differing from the standard double horn, is pitched in

Bb and high F or Bb and high Eb. The Lawson instrument has a unique double-change

valve design (see detail photo). It has a dual bore throughout the cylindrical leadpipe

and first branch taper, “making them indistinguishable in loudness and tone from a

double horn”. Lawson made two models of descants (#8211 - Bb/FF Fourier (large

bore) first made, Nov.1982 and the #963 – Bb/FF Classical (medium bore) first made,

March 1996. The instrument pictured is presently on loan to Marian from Christopher

Leuba (former Principal Horn Chicago Symphony) her teacher and mentor.

Marian Hesse, CBC hornist, used a similar Lawson Descant Horn on the Chestnut

Brass recording Brazen Cartographies (Albany - Troy 233) “That Sea-Blue, Blue”

movement of Brazen Cartographies by Eric Stokes.

Information was taken from IHS Forum, hornhistory.com, hornmatters.com,

hornplanet.com and lawsonhorns.com

Of Interest:

An Equipment Guide to Performing Baroque Horn Music

Joseph T. Falvey

http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1567&context=oa_dissertations