Do any of you horn and/or instrumentation experts out there have any idea what young Beethoven was referring to when he wrote "con sord." for the horns at the end of the Rondino in Eb? If one plays it on a modern transposing mute, it is nevertheless quite awkward unless one infers fermatas on the rests from the "senza tempo" indication. (In tempo, there is barely time to make the change, and to put it in & out as many times as Beethoven asks is well-nigh impossible without dents--or fermatas.)
But that's all for modern horns. I don't understand how a hand-horn player was supposed to do this. Whether the mute was transposing or not, I don't see how you could avoid ghastly intonation problems. The chromatic run in bar 117 seems impossible with a mute in, if the mute was anything like mutes are today. One possibility (pure uninformed speculation) is that the players muted the horn with a loose cloth, which has the effect of loosening up all the notes. This would both have allowed for chromatic passages as well as much faster mute changes with less danger to the horn. SFAIK this is the only example of "con sord." for a horn by Beethoven. Furthermore, I can't think of any other "con sord." directives for the next 40 years or so. All comments welcome. -- Robert Patterson http://RobertGPatterson.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
