Lung Lacerators

According to legend, King Charles IX of France was brought to his deathbed by his passion for sounding lung-lacerating halloos on the hunting horn. True or not, the fine art of horn blowing was for generations a popular musical diversion of Europe's landed aristocracy and an accepted measure of the virility of its practitioners (Louis XIII boasted he could blow a whole day without weakening). Although blue-blooded huntsmen have long lamented the passing of the horn's heartier days, few have addressed themselves to the problem with the energy of Belgium's 59-year-old Baron Marcel Schaetzen de Schaetzenhoff. Last week the Baron invited some of the leading horn groups of Europe to a Grand Festival of Hunting Horns and Venery* held at his 10th century Chateau of Laarne near Ghent.

The horns taken by the players to Laarne are the direct descendants of the circular trompe de chasse developed in France toward the middle of the 17th century. The present-day horn is a 4.54 meter-long conical brass tube wound three times around and flaring from the mouthpiece to a fat bell. Pitched to the key of C, the horn sounds a plaintive, husky call which on good days may ride the wind for a mile or more.

Waltzes & Polkas. The original horn fanfares were used to signal the different stages of the hunt to riders in the field, e.g., stag at bay, hounds hunt a game unknown, withdrawal from the field. Under Louis XV horn players became more ceremonious, began to specialize in elaborate fanfares signaling such things as the "Salute to the Queen" and the appearance of "The Ladies' Carriage." The ladies were provided with their own little horns with which to answer the bucks in the field. By the 18th century horn buffs were experimenting with waltzes, mazurkas and polkas. In some of the orchestras of the day, the hunting horn was given high, florid parts totally beyond the lung capacity of most modern players.

Although the hunting horn has long since disappeared from the symphony orchestra (where the French horn does the horn calls, e.g., Wagner, Bach and Beethoven), its music is still kept alive by dedicated amateur groups such as the Parisian Le Cercle Dampierre et Bien Alle,* which turned up at Laarne last week. For the 200-odd such groups scattered throughout Europe, three French manufacturers produce some 400 hunting horns a year at about $35 apiece.

Blasted Out. The chorused fanfare of a horn group (ranging from six to eleven members) is deafening, as the audience at Laarne discovered. The day's festivities began with a Hunter's Mass at the Laarne Chapel, at which pink-coated, blackbooted horn players substituted for the organ and choir at the service, and all but blasted the congregation from their seats. On the lawn afterwards, the groups lined up in traditional V-formations, took turns tooting their bulge-cheeked way through an intricate variety of fanfares. It was a glorious afternoon for the horn players but a somewhat puzzling one for the modern audience. When they began wandering aimlessly across the chateau grounds as the concert went on, nobody could think of a fanfare to recall them to their seats.

* From old French: the art, act or practise of hunting, the sports of the chase.

* The Marquis de Dampierre served as "Gentleman of Hunts and Pleasures" for Louis XV, and composed numerous horn fanfares.

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