German horn

The German horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell, and in bands and orchestras is the most widely used of three types of horn, the other two being the French horn (in the less common, narrower meaning of the term) and the Vienna horn. Its use among professional players has become so universal that it is only in France and Vienna that any other kind of horn is used today. A musician who plays the German horn is called a horn player (or less frequently, a hornist). The word "German" is used only to distinguish this instrument from the now-rare French and Viennese instruments. Although the expression "French horn" is still used colloquially in English for any orchestral horn (German, French, or Viennese), since the 1930s professional musicians and scholars have generally avoided this term in favour of just "horn". Vienna horns today are played only in Vienna, and are made only by Austrian firms. German horns, by contrast, are not all made by German manufacturers (e.g., Paxman in London; Conn in the US), nor are all French-style instruments made in France (e.g., Reynolds, during the 1940s and 50s in the US).

The name "German horn" is used to distinguish this instrument from other, similar types of orchestral horn, such as the French horn (in the sense of the type of instrument designed by French makers and favoured by French players) and the Vienna horn. The adjective is normally omitted when referring to the instrument, which in colloquial usage is sometimes confusingly referred to as the "French" horn. The added word "French" is still found in some tutors and instrumental books, but is now regarded as a colloquialism, having passed out of the usage of composers, scholars, and professional players since about 1930 because of the increasing ubiquity of the German horn. Since that time, the true French horn's use has been confined mainly to France, and even in that country the German horn was already gaining favour with some French players as early as 1938.

In the late seventeenth century, French makers became preeminent in the manufacture of hunting horns, and were credited with the creation of the now-familiar, circular "hoop" shape of the instrument. As a result, even in England these instruments were often referred to by their French names, trompe de chasse or cor de chasse (the clear modern distinction between trompes'—trumpets—and cors—horns—did not exist at that time). When, early in the eighteenth century, crooks were invented in order to make such horns playable in different keys, they were first devised by German makers. Since these new instruments (which had appeared as early as 1704) were also popularized in England starting in the 1730s by the playing of the sons and grandsons of German emigrant Nicholas Jacob Christopher Messing, the national designators "French" and "German" came to be used to distinguish the simple hunting horn from the newer horn with crooks, which was also called by the Italian name corno cromatico.

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