The Arrival of the Horn in Colombia
by Luis Fernando López Muñoz
English Translation by David Bryant and Gabriella Ibarra
This article describes the chronological, geographical, and cultural path in regards to the introduction and musical relationship of the horn in Colombia via symphonic orchestras and wind bands in the Caldas region from the colonial period through the 20th century.
The European Horn and its Arrival in Colombia
Part of the colonization process the American continent experienced was how the Spanish crown and its nobles tried to replicate the culture and customs of their motherland in the new American territories. After the conquest, and with the imposition of the Christian church, Spanish music came to New Granada by way of noble and rich landowners, who paid conductors to organize concerts, dances and parties, not only for religious, but also for social purposes. The horn at that time was called by its Spanish name trompa. It arrived in Colombia in 1783, although many musicians think its appearance occured in the previous century. Contrary to what one might expect, the horn in Colombia has quite an extensive history. Its first use was documented during the colonial period of the eighteenth century.
Colombian music history books[1] confirm that the horn appeared in the country for the first time in 1783 as part of a Spanish orchestra. This orchestra performed tonadillas (short pieces with dialogues, theatrical performances, and some music and dances), typically lasting about 30 minutes. These performances were the most important musical/theatrical genre of Spain, reaching their peak in the eighteenth century, all the while beginning to receive strong Italian influence. Performances of this orchestra were played in the first theater, the Coliseo Ramírez, which was founded by the approval of the viceregal authority, a military officer of that time whose name was José Tomás Ramírez. Over the years, that theater became known as the Teatro Colón.
This Spanish symphony orchestra performed for a season in 1795, with regularly scheduled concerts, including the participation of the first documented Spanish horn players[2]: Diego García and José Garzón. Also, as important an highlight in the book Historia de la Música en Santa Fe y Bogotá' by Bermúdez, we find the same horn players, Diego and José María García forming part of the José María Garzón group a year later. As a reference for the following data and in order to avoid ambiguities or other excessive clarifications, we chose the music history book by Perdomo Escobar, because it is the predecessor of both and provides more documentation.
The year after the horn arrived in Colombia (1784), the Banda de la Corona was founded. It was one of the first musical bands in Colombia conducted by Maestro Pedro Carricarte, who also conducted the first symphonic orchestra from Spain. According to the chronicler José M. Caballero, “the musicians under the mentioned conductor played music of horns and bugles.”[3] Those instruments had not been heard until then. Later, musicians from this band and others living in Santa Fé (Bogotá), experimented by bringing all the musicians together in a symphonic orchestra, which was a novelty at that time. This experimental orchestra performed works by Michael Haydn and Johann Christian Cannabich in homage to the arrival of the new archbishop of Bogotá: Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón in 1791.
The previous events describe the arrival of the horn in Colombia. Perhaps it was played without the "Hampel" hand technique because since the year 1791 it is not certain if the horn players incorporated this particular technique into their training due to the skills required for its implementation. It is possible that the musicians from Europe had heard about this new discovery however, in the review it was not possible to identify if they incorporated it in their performances.
In 1809 there were two organized bands, la Artillería and Milicias. There was a great rivalry between both bands, evident in every open air concert they performed. An example of this was when the bands tried to interpret what the other had played the day before. In addition, each one used to improvise new things to attract attention from the audience, even if these improvisations had nothing to do with art or with the correct performance of the instruments. One particular anecdote tells about “a horn player who lost his mouthpiece while traveling to Salto and surprisingly continued playing using a playing card.”[4]
The introduction of horns and other instruments into the bands was a big event and caused a great impact in the city of Santa Fe (Bogotá). According to chronicler José M. Caballero, “these instruments and players improved and enriched the low quality of the few instruments in the Cathedral of Santa Fé orchestra.”[5] In fact, it is mentioned later by the same chronicler that the skills between the elder and younger musicians were remarkable. As an important piece of information that complements the previous statement, in 1810, a musical evening was held in front of the house of the President of the Supreme Board, José Miguel Pey. For that event, and upon request of the conductor and the musicians, a stage with a lot of lights was adapted so that the musicians could read their sheets of music, which meant that the music was interpreted with the help of the paper. Until that moment the music played outdoors, generally by bands, did not use scores.[6]
From 1820–1828, Don Juan Antonio Velasco (organist of the Cathedral of Bogotá) held weekly meetings at his home accompanied by a small orchestra which performed masterpieces by great classical composers. Some of these concerts were held as special events or homages to the heroes of Colombia, such as Bolívar and Santander. For the first time, overtures by Rossini (Tancredi, L'Italiana in Algieri and La Gazza Ladra, among others) were heard. These works have two or four horns in their orchestration, a clear demonstration of the progress and the place that the horn was gaining in Colombia.
In 1838 (ten years after the events named above ) Spanish artists performed in Bogotá the following theatrical works by Gioacchino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti, La Gazza Ladra, L'Italiana in Algieri, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Lucia di Lammermoor. By 1846 the Philharmonic Society was created, which had five horn players: Felix Rey, Bernardo Dourde, Ignacio Otalora, Mariano Castillo and Mr. E. Jossup.[7] The previous information represents a further step toward the introduction of symphonic music in Colombia as well as the evolution of the horn, since the usage of horns was fundamental in this genre.
On July 20th, 1875 a public party was held celebrating Colombian Independence Day in the Plaza Bolívar with a military band. The band had horns as part of its instrumentation. Later in 1882, the National Academy of Music was created including the horn class. The horn teacher was Jorge W. Price, who not only taught horn, but also trombone and trumpet.
From the Natural horn to the “Flugelhorn"
Archives documented in Egberto Bermúdez´s book (2000), state that around the year 1865, the person in charge of the National Park wrote a letter to the Ministry of Finance describing the instruments of the bands Artillería, Zapadores and Ayacucho: “among the instruments…there are horns which had additional rings of tubing for their tones.”[8] That means that even in this year, Colombian bands still used natural horns. In addition, a flugelhorn in E♭ is mentioned as being the instrument that replaced the natural horns in the second half of the nineteenth century. This was because it was an instrument with a new sound (based in the text described by the instrument inventory clerk) besides, it had been recently invented by Antoine Joseph Sax[9], better known as Adolphe Sax. It was imported into the country between 1869-1874 by Importadoras Monpox, which supplied the national market, mainly in Bogotá, in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Harmony bands, as they were called at that time, played a very important role in public and outdoor venues. With the appointment of Maestro José Rozo Contreras as conductor of the National Band in the 1930s, and the growth of the musicians roster, two Italian horn players arrived in Colombia in the middle of the twentieth century. One of them was Sergio Cremaschi, who was a horn teacher well known throughout the academic and musical scene in Colombia. By this time, and based on photos of the National Band, there were four horns in this group, two of them were piston horns, or better known as E♭ Alto-Horns.
Due to the influence of Italian and Colombian musicians trained in this school, the term trompa, which was the Spanish word for “horn” used by Spaniards, changed to corno, which was the word used in Italy. Corno translates as the word “horn,” which refers to an animal horn such as goat, antelope, etc. As a result, the word corno was adopted, and continues to be used through the present day.
Evolution of Music for the Horn in Colombia
In the year 1783, when the horn arrived in Colombia, the literature for the instrument was very limited since the harmonic series produced few notes. Furthermore, in order to write melodies for this instrument, the players were placed in an uncomfortable, more difficult register. Therefore, many composers based their writing on the ability and technical possibilities of the available musicians. An example of this is the Mozart horn concertos, written for Joseph Ignaz Leutgeb, a horn virtuoso, who inspired and motivated Mozart to write the horn concertos.
The horn parts in the first works written by Colombian composers were limited to the harmonic series with no melodies and without a leading role. In the operas written by the Colombian composer José María Ponce de León, Esther and Florinda – which were the first Colombian operas presented on stage – the role of the instrument is quite shallow.[10] The same occurs in the compositions of Julio Quevedo Arvelo, son of the Venezuelan musician Nicolás Quevedo Rachadell. When we review his works for orchestra, we find the role of the horn is also limited. We cannot explain the exact reason of this fact, maybe it was due to the limitations of the instrument or the players, however, when the musical meetings were held between 1820 and 1828 in Colombia – where Rossini's Italian overtures were performed – there was neither acknowledgement nor documentation alluding to the solo horns. It is uncertain whether these solos were played by horn players, or if those were just delegated to other instruments while knowing that at that moment European composers already had great knowledge regarding the sonorous, expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument.
When the Philharmonic Society was created in the mid-nineteenth century, there were five horn players that made it up. By now, the horn had taken a great step in its evolution, which included the use of piston valved horns. We cannot deny, however, that acceptance of the modern horn was difficult for many schools. An example of this is the French school, which was one of the most reluctant to use them. It is important to mention that composers were the biggest defenders of this new instrument because of its notable advances, which facilitated both writing and their performance.
Bibliography
Bedoya Serna, Hernán. 2014. Interview with the founder of Caldas department plan of bands. Colombia: via phone.
Bermúdez, Egberto. 2000. Historia de la Música en Santa fe y Bogotá 1538-1938. Bogotá: Fundación de Música.
Caicedo y Rojas, José. 1886. “Estado actual de la Música en Bogotá” El Semanario de Bogotá, n°5.
De Greiff, Hjalmar y Feferbaum, David. 1978. “Textos sobre Música y Folklore.” Boletín de programas de la Radiodifusora Nacional de Colombia. Tomo I.
Domington, Robert. 1994. La Música y sus Instrumentos. España: Alianza Editorial.
Martínez, Andrés. “Reseña Histórica sobre la Música en Colombia, desde la época de la Colonia hasta la fundación de la Academia Nacional de Música”. Anuario de la Academia
de Bellas Artes de Colombia en De Greiff y Feferbaum, 1932.
Miravet Lecha, Juan. “Origen y Evolución de la trompa” Lecture at the First horn week of La Unió Musical de Llirira, April 22dn, 2011. https://sites.google.com/site/juanmiravetlecha/home/investigaciones/origen-y-evolucion-de-la-trompa (accessed on May 14th, 2014)
Osorio, Juan Crisóstomo. 1879. “Breves apuntamientos para la historia de la Música en Colombia.” Repertorio Colombiano.
Pardo, Andrés. 1966. La Cultura Musical en Colombia. Bogotá: Ediciones Lerner.
Perdomo, José Ignacio. 1975. Historia de la Música en Colombia. Bogotá: Editorial ABC.
Price, Jorge. 1935. “Datos sobre la Historia de la Música en Colombia”. Historia y Antigüedades, vol. XXII.
Zarzo, Vicente. 1996. Estudio analítico de la literatura de la trompa. España: Ediciones Seyer.
Zarzo, Vicente. 1994. Compendio sobre las Escuelas Europeas de Trompa. España: Piles Editorial de Música S.A Valencia.
Zarzo, Vicente.1994. La Trompa: historia y desarrollo. España: Ediciones Seyer.
Ramírez, Guillermo. 2014. Interview to the Villamaría Band conductor. Colombia: via phone.
Restrepo Moncada, Alexander. 2014. Interview. Music teacher in the magisterium of
Risaralda. Colombia: via phone.
Zarzo, Vicente. 1995. Una vida para la Música. España: EDICEP C.B.
Luis Fernando Lopez Muñoz holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Caldas, and a Master of Music from EAFIT University. He is co-author of the book Iniciación al Corno, published by the Ministry of Culture of Colombia. He has performed in the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Currently he works as a horn teacher at the University of Caldas and performs with the Caldas Symphony Orchestra.
[1] José Ignacio Perdomo Escobar, Historia de la música en Colombia (Bogotá: Editorial ABC, 1975). Egberto Bermúdez, Historia de la música en Santa Fe y Bogotá 1538-1938, (Bogotá: Fundación de Música, 2000). Textos sobre música y Folklore: Serie “Las Revistas”, Jorge W. Price, “Datos sobre la historia de la música en Colombia”, Boletín de historia y antigüedades, 1935. Andrés Pardo Tovar, La cultura musical en Colombia (Editorial Lerner, 1966).
[2] José Ignacio Perdomo Escobar, Historia de la música en Colombia (Bogotá: Editorial ABC, 1975).
[3] Egberto Bermúdez, Historia de la música en Santafé y Bogotá, 1538-1938, Vol. 1 (Bogotá: Fundación de Música, 2000), 70.
[4] Juan Crisóstomo Osorio, Breves apuntamientos para la historia de la Música en Colombia,
(Bogotá: Repertorio Colombiano, 1879).
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] José Ignacio Perdomo Escobar, Historia de la música en Colombia (Bogotá: Editorial ABC, 1975), 44.
[8] Egberto Bermúdez, Historia de la música en Santafé y Bogotá, 1538-1938, Vol. 1 (Bogotá: Fundación de Música, 2000), 200.
[9]Antoine Joseph Sax, born in Belgium November 6, 1814 and died in Paris February 4, 1894. He was a manufacturer of musical instruments and is best known for his invention of the saxophone.
[10] Egberto Bermúdez, Historia de la música en Santafé y Bogotá, 1538-1938, Vol. 1 (Bogotá: Fundación de Música, 2000), 58
Snedeker 50th Video
Catherine Likhuta Video
Cristoph Ess Video
Pedagogy - Play and the Play Room
by Mike Harcrow
PLAY
Most people enjoy watching children play. Children live in the moment, unconcerned about anything except what they are doing. Somewhere in the musical development of aspiring young performers, many students are trained away from the simple concept of play by what teachers call practice—the tedious routine revisited at “that” time of day and monitored by a clock that seems not to move—when we pull out the Kopprasch and reinitiate the chore of repetition, hoping we can pick up where we left off yesterday but disappointed when we find that there is ground to regain. There is little joy in this and little progress much of the time (and often little encouragement from parents who audibly bemoan the “wasted investments” made into little Johnny or Sally’s “artistic development”), so there is little motivation for the student to continue. Is it any wonder that retention rates are so low in school music programs and even in lesson studios?
Rote practice has its place—that is another discussion—yet we are, fortunately, living in a time of wonderful and inspiring transition. Everyone seems to be looking for ways to keep themselves motivated in addition to keeping students not only involved, not merely just interested, but actually eager to come to rehearsals and, better yet, to practice their assigned materials at home or in the practice room. The trend I have seen—in offerings like Karen Houghton and Janet Boyce Nye’s Recipe for Success, the books and Horn Call columns on creative playing by Jeffrey Agrell, the “excerpt etudes” by Brett Miller and others, and more writings, presentations, and performances by Pip Eastop, John Ericson and Bruce Hembd, Arkady Shilkloper, and numerous others…not to mention the wonderful jazz improvisations, pop-song covers, and multi-track arrangements of all sorts of music by players from around the world which have flooded covid-era YouTube and social media—is wonderfully encouraging. I applaud all of this, and I see it as a big, joyful leap in the right direction for both players and players-in-training. What we must do now is shift such concepts from the advanced player who has rediscovered his/her creative freedom to the developing player, perhaps in time to stave off the Way of Drudgery before it ever starts.
I am not really writing to present anything newer than what our excellent colleagues are doing currently or even what Herr Kopprasch offered in the incipits we see over many of his etudes suggesting transpositions or changes of rhythm and/or articulation for additional productivity. I simply want to offer this one suggestion: let us minimize or even eliminate the use of the word practice and replace it with the word play. After all, we do play our instruments. (We have, in many American schools, been able to eliminate the old aggressive word attack [used for initiating a note] by substituting the more-accurate term release.) Take this suggestion and be creative with it, for yourselves and for your colleagues and for your students. You will do far more and much better for your own time and space than specific things I can offer from my time and space (but I will present some ideas here shortly anyway, just as a starting point), and we will all learn and grow, and the exchange-of-ideas we seek and enjoy will happen.
In the wonderful new facility where I teach, we have two levels of state-of-the-art practice rooms in addition to continuing access to practice rooms in the old music building; but my students no longer hear me call them practice rooms. I have, over the past few years, taken to calling them playrooms. While the shift in terminology has generated a dramatically more positive approach to time spent in these rooms, it has not eliminated the need to teach even university students how to practice, i.e., play. It is easier now, though, to point them to those theme-and-variation options in Kopprasch as well as to endless internet links to great lessons and performances available for nothing more than the cost of the time required to watch and learn. When I suggest that my students take apart the musical toaster with which they are struggling, it leads to a truly wonderful and ongoing conversation on what play can really be.
THE PLAYROOM
A playroom requires toys, most or all of which are now on our phones: high-quality audio-video both for listening and recording, your camera as a mirror, tuner and drone, metronome, and, of course, access to the internet for recordings and play-along sites and other helpful apps. (The old clunky versions of these will work fine, too! But alas, even cellphones do not grease our slides for us.) These toys will help us as we play games with the gameboard (the music) in front of us; and as we play, we will become much more engaged in our re-energized learning process…and it could be so much fun that we even lose track of time!
What is challenging? A scale run or awkward technical passage? Take it apart: play smaller, sensible note groupings; play these blocks with different rhythms and articulations; play them slower and faster; move the starting point over by a note, then by two, and so on; transpose the blocks; invert them; retrograde them (i.e., play them backwards); play them in retrograde-inversion with snappy rhythms and crisp tonguing and with extreme dynamic contrasts a tritone away from the original key. Take the game as far as you are able (or want) to go, then begin putting the blocks back together.
Is it range that is challenging? Play smaller bits with some rest in between them. Transpose the passage down to C then work your way up to horn in F, then G or even A—keys beyond what is written—even if this process takes a few weeks to complete!
Is it finger-tongue coordination that is challenging? Eliminate one aspect of the passage—perhaps, in this case, the tonguing—and slowly add it back in with all the coolest articulation patterns you can imagine. Swing it! Add a rhythm generator to your play—be Cuban Pete with a rumba beat! Sing your music. Dance your music.
Find patterns (in the rhythms, the fingerings, the harmonic series, etc.). Connect the puzzle pieces of form (the repetition and contrast in the piece); learning the form can condense the learning time, and it helps immensely with memorization. Write lyrics to the music, or write down the story you imagine as you play the concerto or sonata movement.
Sit to play. Stand to play. Stand on one leg to play. Play in new locations. (I have found my students in our various “locked” performance venues, outdoors, in stairwells, in the freight elevator, even in the men’s room…“for the great acoustics,” I was assured!) Turn the music upside-down to play—that will make you focus! Take a lap around the building and come back to play. Listen for dead spots in the regular or temporary playroom, and find those spots with the best resonance, enjoying each for what you learn about your sound and yourself.
This is a good place to stop. You’ve got the idea, and you are creative. Try the unexpected. Engage your curiosity. What will you do when you close this column and go to your playroom?
…and, as an incentive, send us your creative playroom experiences—high-resolution photos and YouTube links are great! Include your name and a line or two about the thought behind your play. The most creative and highly-publishable submissions will be posted in upcoming editions of the e-Newsletter. Send your best play to hornandmore@hornsociety.org, and please put “BEST PLAY” in the subject line. Have fun!
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Trivia Contest
It’s time once again to test your knowledge of all things horn! This month’s movie-soundtrack-themed questions come to us courtesy of Andrew Bain, no stranger to the art form himself. We will award three prizes from our fantastic IHS53 shop, randomly selected, to the winners. Please send your answers to hornandmore@hornsociety.org by June 15. We will publish the names of the winners and the correct answers on our IHS social media outlets. Good luck!
- Where did John Williams record the scores to the final 3 Star Wars Movies?
- Studio One, Abbey Road Studios, London
- The Barbara Streisand Scoring Stage, Sony Pictures Studios, Los Angeles
- Smecky Music Studios, Prague
- The Newman Scoring Stage, Fox Studios, Los Angeles
- Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
- What is the most prominent model of Horn used in the Hollywood Studios
- Geyer
- Conn 8D
- Alexander 103
- C.F. Schmidt
- Knopf
- Which 2 was the score of the new West Side Story movie recorded?
- London/Paris
- Nashville/Seattle
- Berlin/Prague
- New York/ Los Angeles
- San Juan/ New York
QUARTETO INTEMPORAL
by Flávio Rafael Sousa Oliveira
English version
Sobre o quarteto: Este quarteto foi criado no ano de 2020 com o objetivo de levar a música a toda a parte do nosso país. Fazendo concertos em zonas históricas e antigas de Portugal. Também defende um ideal de que a música não se situa apenas em algumas épocas históricas daí, também ter um grande interesse em levar a música pouco conhecida até aos seus espetadores, enriquecendo assim o conhecimento dos mesmos e dando voz a grandes compositores que ainda são pouco conhecidos. Este quarteto tem como objetivo fazer concertos pedagógicos para os seus ouvintes falando um pouco da zona onde acontece o concerto e comentando todas as obras que serão interpretadas, valorizando assim as zonas em que participam e também motivando o interesse do público pela cultura. Este tipo de formação é muito versátil e pode ser usado em inúmeros tipos de eventos e projetos. Todos os elementos são dotados de excelentes condições técnicas e musicais, tendo todos os estudos e competências para a execução do seu instrumento, como se pode verificar pelos seus currículos. Atualmente, o grupo já realizou alguns concertos, onde obteve comentários muitos positivos em relação ao seu trabalho. Futuramente o grupo pretende fazer certos eventos, tais como, casamentos, batizados, inaugurações, música para crianças, música em locais históricos e participar em vários eventos culturais. Um dos projetos idealizados pelo quarteto será percorrer todas as partes histórica e culturais de Portugal, ajudando assim a sua dinamização e a sua visibilidade perante a população.
INTEMPORAL QUARTET
About the quartet: This quartet was created in the year 2020 with the aim of taking music to all parts of our country. We play concerts in historic and ancient areas of Portugal. It also upholds the ideal that music is not only located in some historical periods, but also has a great interest in taking lesser-known music to its audience, thus enriching their knowledge and giving voice to these great but less famous composers. This quartet aims to make educational concerts for its listeners by talking a little about the area where the concert takes place and commenting on all the works that will be interpreted, thus spotlighting the places themselves and also motivating the public's interest in culture. This type of training is very versatile and can be used in numerous types of events and projects. All elements are endowed with excellent technical and musical conditions, having all the studies and skills for the execution of your instrument, as can be seen from their curricula. Currently, the group has already performed some concerts, where it received positive feedback regarding its work. In the future, the group intends to play for events such as weddings, baptisms, inaugurations, music for children, and music in historical places, as well as to participate in various cultural events.. One of the projects conceived by the quartet will be to cover all the historical and cultural parts of Portugal, thus helping its dynamism and its visibility in the public eye.
