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Cor anglais

Classification Woodwind Wind Aerophone Playing range Related instruments Piccolo oboe Oboe d'amore Oboe da caccia Bass oboe Heckelphone Contrabass oboe

The cor anglais, or English horn, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the woodwind family.

It is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument), and is consequently approximately one-third longer. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe. Its sounding range stretches from the E (or, rarely, E flat) below middle C to the C two octaves above middle C.

Its pear-shaped bell gives it a more nasal, covered timbre than that of the oboe, being closer in tone quality to the oboe d'amore. Whereas the oboe is the soprano instrument of the oboe family, the cor anglais is generally regarded as the alto member of the family, and the oboe d'amore, pitched between the two in the key of A, is the mezzo-soprano member. It is perceived to have a more mellow and more plaintive tone than the oboe. Its appearance differs from the oboe in that the reed is attached to a slightly bent metal tube called the bocal, or crook, and the bell has a bulbous shape.

Reeds used to play the cor anglais are similar to those used for an oboe, comprising a piece of cane folded in two. Although the instrument itself is longer, a cor anglais reed is shorter than that of an oboe, and also slightly wider. Where the cane on an oboe reed is connected to a small metal tube (the staple) partially covered in cork, there is no such cork on a cor anglais reed, which fits metal against metal onto the bocal, in a manner not dissimilar to the bassoon.

Perhaps the best known makers of modern instruments are the French firms of F. Lorée, Marigaux and Rigoutat, the British firm of T W Howarth, and the American firm Fox. Instruments from smaller volume makers, such as A. Laubin, are also sought after. Instruments are usually made from African Blackwood or Grenadilla, although some makers offer instruments in a choice of alternative woods as well, such as cocobolo wood (Howarth) or violet wood (Lorée), which are said to alter the voice of the cor anglais slightly, reputedly making it even more mellow and warmer. Fox has recently made some instruments in plastic resin.

The term "cor anglais" literally means "English horn", but the cor anglais is neither English nor a horn. The instrument's name is sometimes supposed to derive from the circumstance that at some point a standard cor anglais resembled an oboe da caccia, a baroque alto instrument of the oboe family, which tended to be either bent or curved in shape, and was thus called a cor anglé, meaning "bent horn" (it has a bent metal pipe from the piece of cork the reed sits in to the top of the body of the instrument), this epithet later to be corrupted to cor anglais. This is probably a myth, as "anglé" does not mean "angled" in any language. The cor anglais and the oboe da caccia, also, are otherwise quite unlike, however, and there is no clear connection between them. It has alternatively been suggested that the name of "anglehorn" developed as a reference to the English horn, a part which is not present in most of the smaller members of the oboe family. However, the name seems to have appeared first in German and Austrian scores of the 1760s/70s, always in Italian form as "corno inglese." Prior to this, in the late Baroque period Johann Sebastian Bach referred to a similar double reed instrument pitched in F as taille. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians suggests that the oboe da caccia resembled the curved horns played by putti and angels in some Central-European renaissance paintings, which gave rise to the German name "engellisches Horn", meaning "angelic horn", engellisch also being a common alternative spelling at the time for the adjective englisch, "English".

Many oboists double on the cor anglais, just as flutists double on the piccolo. (Although piccolo oboes, called oboe musette, do exist, they are very rarely played.)

There are few solo pieces for the instrument, although its timbre makes it well suited to the performance of expressive, melancholic solos in orchestral works (particularly slow movements) as well as operas. Famous examples include:

• Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 (1893), the New World Symphony (Largo)
• Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (1939) (2nd movement)
• Jean Sibelius's Swan of Tuonela (1893) (more or less an English horn concerto)

as well as:

• William Alwyn's Autum Legend for English horn and string orchestra (1954)
• Vincenzo Bellini's Il Pirata (Act II: Introduzione) (1827)
• Hector Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture (1844) and Harold in Italy (1834)
• Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (third movement) (1830)
• Alexander Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880)
• Aaron Copland's Quiet City (1940) (more or less a double concerto for trumpet and English horn)
• Claude Debussy's Nocturnes (1899) ("Nuages")
• César Franck's Symphony in D minor (1888) (2nd movement)
• Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 22, The Philosopher
• Arthur Honegger's Concerto da camera, for flute, English horn & string orchestra (1948)
• Gordon Jacob's Rhapsody for English Horn and Strings (1948)
• Aaron Jay Kernis' Colored Field (2000) an English Horn Concerto commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony for their former English Horn player Julie Ann Giacobassi. (The piece was later arranged for cello and orchestra, both versions are still available)
• Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G (1931) (2nd movement)
• Alfred Reed's Russian Christmas Music (1944)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade Op. 35 (1888)
• Ned Rorem's Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra (1992)
• Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture (1829)
• Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Film Score)
• Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 in G minor (1957) (4th movement)
• Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1943) (1st movement)
• Jean Sibelius's Karelia Suite (1893) and Pelléas et Mélisande (1905)
• Jack Stamp's Elegy for English Horn and Band
• Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (1913) Mainly in the second-to-last part, "Ritual Action of the Ancestors".
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1870) (Love Theme, Exposition)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 5 in D Major (1943) (3rd movement)
• Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1859) (Act 3, Scene 1)

In film scores, the cor anglais is heard as a solo instrument as frequently (if not more) than the oboe, most likely because of its rounder tone quality. A good example of this is John Williams' use of the English Horn 9 minutes into the Revenge of the Sith cue "A New Hope and End Credits" when it is used to state the "force" theme. In addition to classical music, the cor anglais has also been used by a few musicians as a jazz instrument; most prominent among these are Paul McCandless, Sonny Simmons, Vinny Golia, and Tom Christensen, and Nancy Rumbel of the Grammy-winning duo Tingstad and Rumbel. The cor anglais also figures in the instrumental arrangements of several Carpenters songs, most notably "For All We Know" (1971). It has also made some appearances in pop music, such as in Lindisfarne's "Run For Home" and Randy Crawford's "One Day I'll Fly Away." In Britain, Tony Hatch's theme tune to the long-running soap opera Emmerdale Farm was originally performed on the cor anglais.

Paul McCartney holds a cor anglais on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The instrument also features in the 2005 movie American Pie Presents: Band Camp (referred to as the oboe).

List of English horn players

v • d • e Members of the oboe family
Piccolo oboe • Piccolo heckelphone • Oboe • Baroque oboe • Oboe d'amore • Cor anglais (English horn) • Oboe da caccia • Bass oboe • Heckelphone • Contrabass oboe