The French horn is only called the French horn… in English. In French, it’s just called the horn, le cor – c-o-r. In German it’s Horn, das Horn, in Italian it’s corno, and… well how about… Bulgarian… in Bulgarian, it’s Roq. No French connections anywhere to be found. So why do English speakers call it the French horn, and why have they been calling it that since the 1600's? Well, it’s a good question, and nobody is entirely sure of the answer, although the most likely theory is that the English originally called it the French horn for the simple reason that it came from France. That’s right – the country that brought us camembert and Chanel No. 5 is also the country that introduced a brass instrument coiled into a circle. Its ancestor was the hooped hunting horn, a horn that could be slung over the shoulder and played on horseback. By the end of the seventeenth century, refined versions of the hunting horn had made their way out of the fields and into the orchestra, and they’ve never left.
A Minute with Miles – a production of South Carolina ETV Radio, made possible by the J.M. Smith Corporation.
