A.N.A. Mendez

Went to mainly Mozart last night. Did not know I was in for some trumpet history. The principle trumpet explained (in front of orchestra) how mozart's little played (because nobody has a posthorn) serenade has only 45 seconds of posthorn work but retains the name none the less (a posthorn was used in the 1700s to announce the arrival of the mailman). A great story was related regarding his pursuit of a real posthorn, how he finally found one in Tuscon via Germany with a dead lizard in it! He found out about the lizard after 4 days of trying to figure out why the horn played "stuffy" and after four days of moist air it started to become shall we say "smelly". The poor long dead lizard was "blown out" and he proceeded to try and make the thing tune. He did have to add a device on the lead pipe to make it work. The horn had beautiful tone and the whole piece was wonderful. Much work with the oboes and flutes playing great parts that may have otherwise been written for violins. Very interesting evening and great learning experience.

Johntpt

Sounds like a great concert! The "Posthorn" serenade is a great piece, one of my favorites to listen to. Apparently the solo for posthorn was the call played at the end of the University's session, and the entire Serenade was performed in 1779 to end the session of the University of Vienna. Nowadays the Posthorn solo is often played on either a valved posthorn or a flugelhorn. I have a couple of nice recordings - the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell featuring Bernie Adelstein on the posthorn, and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado with Konradin Groth on the posthorn.

JU

A.N.A. Mendez

Manny, any thoughts?

A.N.A. Mendez

How did we get 2 different posts on the posthorn? ('::')

loweredsixth

And I meant to post on this thread (instead of the other one I posted on.) Oh well, check out this POSTHORN

Manny Laureano

It's a lovely piece, that serenade!

I've played it on D rotary and a little nothing natural trumpet wrapped in green-colored leather that I bought somewhere just for fun. It turned out to pitched in A! Bingo!

ML

cornetguy

i saw the cso do this years ago. herseth used a large circular posthorn that if i remember right steve lewis built for him. (picture of him with it in the feb 1998 itg journal)

Liad Bar-EL

If you please, I would like more info on this with Bernard Adelstein on the post horn.

Thanks,

Liad Bar-EL

Jimi Michiel

I'm guessing the trumpet player was Gary Bordner. He got the horn last year and actually showed me the lizard (it was in a little plastic bag) in a lesson. He told me that he eventually gave both the instrument and the lizard to Eric Peterson, a local repair guy. Eric is the biggest pack-rat I've ever seen. I wouldn't be surprised if the lizard was still in his shop buried under some old tuba valves or used o-rings...


Charlie actually has two Monette posthorns. The one he uses for Mahler wouldn't technically be considered a posthorn because of the rotors. For the Mozart, he has a traditional posthorn with an STC-3 (heavywaight) mouthpiece. He let me try it after a concert and it was amazing. I have a feeling the original posthorns didn't have the depth of sound and lined up over-tone series like the Monette posthorn, but it was wonderful to listen to.

-Jimi

Liad Bar-EL

Jimi,

Do you have some specs on the post horn? I'm surprised to learn that Monnett makes post horns. What other company makes good post horns?

Thanks,

Liad