Cor anglais
Encyclopedia
The cor anglais or English horn (American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

), is a double-reed
Double reed
A double reed is a type of reed used to produce sound in various wind instruments. The term double reed comes from the fact that there are two pieces of cane vibrating against each other. A single reed consists of one piece of cane which vibrates against a mouthpiece made of metal, hardened...

 woodwind instrument
Woodwind instrument
A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against a sharp edge or through a reed, causing the air within its resonator to vibrate...

 in the oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 family.

The cor anglais is a transposing instrument
Transposing instrument
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which written notes are read at a pitch different from the corresponding concert pitch, which a non-transposing instrument, such as a piano, would play. Playing a written C on a transposing instrument will produce a note other than concert C...

 pitched in F
F (musical note)
F is a musical note, the fourth above C. It is also known as fa in fixed-do solfège.When calculated in equal temperament with a reference of A above middle C as 440 Hz, the frequency of Middle F is approximately 349.228 Hz. See pitch for a discussion of historical variations in...

, a perfect fifth
Perfect fifth
In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is a musical interval encompassing five staff positions , and the perfect fifth is a fifth spanning seven semitones, or in meantone, four diatonic semitones and three chromatic semitones...

 lower than the oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 (a C instrument), and is consequently approximately one and a half times the length of the oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe. Music for the cor anglais is thus written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument actually sounds. Because the cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B-flat of the oboe, its sounding range stretches from the E (written B natural) below middle C
Middle C
C or Do is the first note of the fixed-Do solfège scale. Its enharmonic is B.-Middle C:Middle C is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation because of the note's position as the fourth C key on a standard 88-key piano keyboard...

 to the C two octaves above middle C.

Description and timbre

Its pear-shaped bell gives it a more covered timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

 than that of the oboe, being closer in tonal quality to the oboe d'amore
Oboe d'amore
The oboe d'amore , less commonly oboe d'amour, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the mezzo-soprano of the oboe family, between the oboe itself and the cor...

. 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
Oboe d'amore
The oboe d'amore , less commonly oboe d'amour, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the mezzo-soprano of the oboe family, between the oboe itself and the cor...

, pitched between the two in the key of A, as the mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

 member. The cor anglais is perceived to have a more mellow and 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
Bocal
A bocal is the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument. It's a curved, tapered tube, which is an integral part of certain woodwind instruments, including double reed instruments such as the bassoon, contrabassoon, English horn, and oboe d'amore, as well as the larger recorders...

, or crook, and the bell has a bulbous shape. It is also much longer overall.

Reeds used to play the cor anglais are similar to those used for an oboe, consisting of a piece of cane folded in two. While the cane on an oboe reed is mounted on a small metal tube (the staple) partially covered in cork, there is no such cork on a cor anglais reed, which fits directly on the bocal. The cane part of the reed is wider and longer than that of the oboe. Unlike American style oboe reeds, cor anglais reeds typically have wire at the base, approximately 5 millimeters from the top of the string used to attach the cane to the staple. This wire serves to hold the two blades of cane together and stabilize tone and pitch.

Perhaps the best known makers of modern instruments are the French firms of F. Lorée
F. Lorée
F. Lorée is a manufacturer of double reed musical instruments based in Paris, France. Lorée produces professional-level instruments in the oboe family under the brand F. Lorée and student-level oboes under the brand Cabart.F...

, Marigaux
Marigaux
Marigaux, also known as SML is a French manufacturer of high quality woodwind instruments.Marigaux is considered one of the world's best oboe-makers...

 and Rigoutat, the British firm of T W Howarth, and the American firm Fox. Instruments from smaller makers, such as A. Laubin
A. Laubin
A. Laubin, Inc. is an American maker of oboes and English horns, located in Peekskill, New York. The first Laubin oboe was made in 1931 by Alfred Laubin, a performing musician who was dissatisfied with the quality of instruments available at the time. The creation of oboes began as a home project,...

, are also sought after. Instruments are usually made from African Blackwood
African Blackwood
Dalbergia melanoxylon is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to seasonally dry regions of Africa from Senegal east to Eritrea and south to the Transvaal in South Africa....

 (aka Grenadilla), although some makers offer instruments in a choice of alternative woods as well, such as cocobolo
Cocobolo
Cocobolo is a tropical hardwood of the tree Dalbergia retusa from Central America.Only the heartwood is used: this is typically orange or reddish-brown in color, often with a figuring of darker irregular traces weaving through the wood. The sapwood is a creamy yellow, with a sharp boundary with...

 (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.

History and etymology

The term cor anglais is French for English horn, but the instrument is neither from England nor related to the (French) horn. The instrument is thought to have originated in Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

 about 1720, when a bulb bell was added to the oboe da caccia
Oboe da caccia
The oboe da caccia is a double reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family, pitched a fifth below the oboe and used primarily in the Baroque period of European classical music...

, a Baroque alto instrument of the oboe family, possibly by J. T. Weigel of Breslau. The two-keyed, open-belled straight tenor oboe (in French called "taille de hautbois", i.e., tenor oboe) and more especially the flare-belled oboe da caccia resembled the horns played by angels in religious images of the Middle Ages and this gave rise in German-speaking central Europe to the Middle High German
Middle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...

 name engellisches Horn, meaning angelic horn. But engellisch also meant English in the vernacular of the time, and so the angelic horn became the English horn, a name which was retained, in the absence of any better alternative, for the curved, bulb-belled tenor oboe even after the oboe da caccia fell into disuse around 1760.

The earliest known orchestral part specifically for the English horn is in the Vienna version of Niccolò Jommelli
Niccolò Jommelli
Niccolò Jommelli was an Italian composer. He was born in Aversa and died in Naples. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he made important changes to opera and reduced the importance of star singers.-Early life:Jommelli was born to Francesco Antonio Jommelli and...

's opera Ezio dating from 1749. Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

 and Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

 followed suit in the 1750s, and the first English horn concerto
English horn concerto
A number of concertos and concertante works have been written for cor anglais and string, wind, chamber, or full orchestra.English-horn concertos appeared about a century later than oboe solo pieces, mostly because until halfway through the 18th century different instruments had the role of the...

s were written in the 1770s. Considering the name "cor anglais", it is ironic that the instrument was not used in France until about 1800 and in England until the 1830s. The local equivalent for "English horn" is used in other European languages such as Italian, German and Spanish.

The name is sometimes incorrectly said to derive from its original resemblance to the oboe da caccia, which tended to be either bent or curved in shape and was thus supposedly called a cor anglé (bent horn), a name later corrupted to cor anglais. The cor anglais still has a bent metal pipe, known as the bocal, which connects the reed to the instrument proper. This, however, is a false etymology
False etymology
Folk etymology is change in a word or phrase over time resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. Unanalyzable borrowings from foreign languages, like asparagus, or old compounds such as samblind which have lost their iconic motivation are...

, as anglé does not mean angled in any language. The name first appeared on a regular basis in Italian, German and Austrian scores from 1749, usually in the Italian form corno inglese.

Repertoire

Many oboists double on the cor anglais, just as flautist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

s double on the piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

. (Although piccolo oboe
Piccolo oboe
The piccolo oboe, also known as the piccoloboe, is the smallest and highest pitched member of the oboe family, historically known as the oboe musette...

s, called oboe musette, do exist, they are very rarely played.)

Concertos

Until the 20th century, there were few solo pieces for the instrument with a large ensemble. Important examples of such concertos and concertante works are:
  • William Alwyn
    William Alwyn
    William Alwyn, CBE, born William Alwyn Smith was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher.-Life and music:...

    's Autumn Legend for English horn and string orchestra (1954)
  • Emmanuel Chabrier
    Emmanuel Chabrier
    Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...

    's Lamento for English horn and orchestra (1875)
  • Aaron Copland
    Aaron Copland
    Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

    's Quiet City
    Quiet City (music)
    Quiet City is a well-known composition for trumpet, cor anglais, and string orchestra by Aaron Copland.In 1940, Copland wrote incidental music for the play Quiet City by Irwin Shaw. The next year he knitted some of it into a ten-minute piece composition designed to be performed independently of the...

    for trumpet, English horn, and string orchestra (1940) †
  • Gaetano Donizetti
    Gaetano Donizetti
    Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

    's Concertino in G major (1816)
  • Arthur Honegger
    Arthur Honegger
    Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...

    's Concerto da camera, for flute, English horn & string orchestra (1948)
  • Gordon Jacob
    Gordon Jacob
    Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...

    's Rhapsody for English Horn and Strings (1948)
  • Aaron Jay Kernis
    Aaron Jay Kernis
    Aaron Jay Kernis is an American composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.-Biography:Aaron Jay Kernis is Jewish, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Yale University .,Notable works include the...

    ' Colored Field (2000)
  • James MacMillan's The World's Ransoming, for obbligato English horn and orchestra (1995–96)—part of the orchestral tryptich Triduum) (1995–97) †
  • Walter Piston
    Walter Piston
    Walter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....

    's Fantasy for English horn, harp and string orchestra (1952)
  • Ned Rorem
    Ned Rorem
    Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...

    's Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra (1992)
  • Jean Sibelius
    Jean Sibelius
    Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

    ' The Swan of Tuonela (1893) †
  • Pēteris Vasks
    Peteris Vasks
    Pēteris Vasks is a Latvian composer.Vasks was born in Aizpute, Latvia, into the family of a Baptist pastor. He trained as a violinist at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, as a double-bass player with Vitautas Sereikaan at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and played in several...

    ' Concerto for English horn and orchestra (1989)
  • Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
    Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
    Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...

    's Concertino in A-flat, op. 34 (1947)


† Though concertante in nature, these are just orchestral works featuring extensive solos, with the player seated within the orchestra

Chamber music

Better known chamber music for English horn include:
  • Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

    's Trio for 2 oboes and English horn, Op. 87 (1795)
  • Ludwig van Beethoven's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano", for 2 oboes and English horn, WoO 28 (1796)
  • Elliott Carter
    Elliott Carter
    Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

    's Pastoral for English horn (or viola, or clarinet) and piano (1940)
  • Felix Draeseke
    Felix Draeseke
    Felix August Bernhard Draeseke was a composer of the "New German School" admiring Liszt and Richard Wagner. He wrote compositions in most forms including eight operas and stage works, four symphonies, and much vocal and chamber music.-Life:Felix Draeseke was born in the Franconian ducal town of...

    's Little Suite for English horn and piano, Op. 87 (1911)
  • Paul Hindemith
    Paul Hindemith
    Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...

    's English Horn Sonata (1941)
  • Charles Koechlin
    Charles Koechlin
    Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars , travelling, stereoscopic...

    's Monody for English Horn, Op. 216, Nr. 11 (1947–1948)
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

    's Adagio in C, for English Horn, Violin, Viola and Cello, K. 580a (Fragment, 1789)
  • Vincent Persichetti
    Vincent Persichetti
    Vincent Ludwig Persichetti was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, Persichetti was a native of Philadelphia...

    's Parable XV for Solo English Horn
  • Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

    's Pastorale
    Pastorale (Stravinsky)
    Pastorale is a song without words written by Igor Stravinsky in 1907. Stravinsky composed the piece at his family's estate in Ustilug, Ukraine, while under the supervision of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and dedicated it to Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter Nadia....

    for soprano and piano (1907), in the composer's own arrangements for soprano, oboe, English horn, clarinet, and bassoon (1923), and violin, oboe, English horn, clarinet, and bassoon (1933)
  • Carlo Yvon
    Carlo Yvon
    Carlo Yvon was an Italian composer, virtuoso oboist and english horn player, and music educator. He studied at the Milan Conservatory in his native city and later was a teacher at that school. For many years he served as principal oboist at La Scala...

    's Sonata in F minor for English Horn (or Viola) and Piano (published ca. 1831), one of the few sonata
    Sonata
    Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...

    s written during the Romantic era
    Romantic music
    Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

     for this combination.

Solos in orchestral works

The English horn's timbre makes it well suited to the performance of expressive, melancholic solos in orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

l works (including film scores) as well as operas. Famous examples are:
  • Vincenzo Bellini
    Vincenzo Bellini
    Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

    's Il Pirata (Act II: Introduzione) (1827)
  • Hector Berlioz
    Hector Berlioz
    Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

    's Harold in Italy
    Harold in Italy
    Harold en Italie, Symphonie en quatre parties avec un alto principal , Op. 16, is Hector Berlioz' second symphony, written in 1834.-Creation:...

    (1834)
  • Hector Berlioz's Rob Roy Overture (1826)
  • Hector Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture (1844)
  • Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique
    Symphonie Fantastique
    Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...

    (third movement) (1830)
  • Alexander Borodin
    Alexander Borodin
    Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...

    's In the Steppes of Central Asia
    In the Steppes of Central Asia
    On the Steppes of Central Asia is the common English title for a "musical tableau" by Alexander Borodin, composed in 1880....

    (1880)
  • Alexander Borodin's Polovetsian Dances
    Polovetsian Dances
    The Polovtsian Dances are perhaps the best known selections from Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor . They are often played as a stand-alone concert piece. Borodin was the original composer, but the opera was left unfinished at his death and was subsequently completed by Nikolai...

     from "Prince Igor" (1890)
  • Claude Debussy
    Claude Debussy
    Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

    's
    Nocturnes (1899) ("Nuages")
  • Antonín Dvořák
    Antonín Dvorák
    Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

    's
    Symphony No. 9
    Symphony No. 9 (Dvorák)
    The Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178 , popularly known as the New World Symphony, was composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1893 during his visit to the United States from 1892 to 1895. It is by far his most popular symphony, and one of the most popular in the modern repertoire...

    (1893), "From the New World" (Largo)
  • César Franck
    César Franck
    César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

    's
    Symphony in D minor
    Symphony in D minor (Franck)
    The Symphony in D minor is the most famous orchestral work and the only symphony written by the 19th-century Belgian composer César Franck. After two years of work, the symphony was completed 22 August 1888. It was premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 February 1889 under the direction of ...

    (1888) (2nd movement)
  • Joseph Haydn
    Joseph Haydn
    Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

    's
    Symphony No. 22, The Philosopher
    Symphony No. 22 (Haydn)
    Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major, Hoboken I/22, is a symphony written by Joseph Haydn in 1764. Nicknamed "The Philosopher" , it is the most widely programmed of Haydn's early symphonies....

    (1764) (two English horns)
  • Joseph Haydn's Divertimento in F for Two Violins, Two English Horns, Two Horns & Two Bassoons Hob. II: 6 (1760)
  • Joseph Haydn's Divertimento in Eb, for Flute, Two English Horns, Bassoon, Two Horns, Two Violins & Bass Hob. II: 24 (Fragment-Ca. 1761)
  • Zoltán Kodály
    Zoltán Kodály
    Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....

    's
    Summer Evening (1906)
  • Gustav Mahler
    Gustav Mahler
    Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

    's
    Wenn dein Mütterlein from Kindertotenlieder
    Kindertotenlieder
    Kindertotenlieder is a song cycle for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler...

    (1905)
  • Olivier Messiaen
    Olivier Messiaen
    Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

    's
    L'ascension
    L'Ascension
    L'ascension is a piece for orchestra, composed by Olivier Messiaen in 1932-33. Messiaen described it as "4 meditations for orchestra".The orchestral piece is in four brief sections:...

    (1932–33) (2nd movement)
  • Thea Musgrave
    Thea Musgrave
    Thea Musgrave CBE is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music.-Biography:Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Thea Musgrave studied at the University of Edinburgh and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger...

    's
    Phoenix Rising (1997)
  • Basil Poledouris
    Basil Poledouris
    Vassilis Konstantinos "Basil" Poledouris was a Greek-American music composer who concentrated on the scores for films and television shows...

    '
    Conan the Barbarian score – "Riddle of Steel" (1982)
  • Gaetano Pugnani
    Gaetano Pugnani
    Gaetano Pugnani was born in Turin. He trained on the violin under Giovanni Battista Somis and Giuseppe Tartini. In 1752, Pugnani became the first violinist of the Royal Chapel in Turin. Then he went on a large tour that granted him great fame for his extraordinary skill on the violin...

    's
    Werther Melodrama in Two Parts, (Part II No. 21 Largo assai) (1790)
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff
    Sergei Rachmaninoff
    Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

    's Symphonic Dances
    Symphonic Dances (Rachmaninoff)
    The Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, is an orchestral suite in three movements. Completed in 1940, it is Sergei Rachmaninoff's last composition. The work summarizes Rachmaninoff's compositional output....

     (1940)
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff's The Bells (1913) (4th movement)
  • Maurice Ravel
    Maurice Ravel
    Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

    's
    Piano Concerto in G (1931) (2nd movement)
  • Maurice Ravel's Ballet
    Ballet
    Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

     
    Daphnis et Chloé
    Daphnis et Chloé
    Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" . The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from an eponymous romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD...

    (1912)
  • Maurice Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole
    Rapsodie espagnole
    Rapsodie espagnole is an orchestral rhapsody written by Maurice Ravel. Composed between 1907 and 1908, the Rapsodie represents one of Ravel's first major works for orchestra....

    (1908)
  • Alfred Reed
    Alfred Reed
    Alfred Reed was one of North America's most prolific and frequently performed composers, with more than two hundred published works for concert band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensemble to his name...

    's
    Russian Christmas Music
    Russian Christmas Music
    Russian Christmas Music is a musical piece for symphonic band, written by Alfred Reed in 1944. It is one of the most popular and frequently performed pieces of concert band literature....

    (1944)
  • Ottorino Respighi
    Ottorino Respighi
    Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...

    's
    Lauda per la Natività del Signore (1930)
  • Ottorino Respighi's Pini di Roma
    Pini di Roma
    Pines of Rome is a symphonic poem written in 1924 by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi and, together with Fontane di Roma and Feste Romane, forms what is sometimes loosely referred to as his "Roman trilogy"...

    (1924)
  • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
    Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
    Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

    's
    Capriccio Espagnol
    Capriccio espagnol
    Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34, is the common Western title for an orchestral work based on Spanish folk melodies and written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. Rimsky-Korsakov originally intended to write the work for a solo violin with orchestra, but later decided that a purely orchestral work...

    (1887) (2nd Movement)
  • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade
    Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)
    Sheherazade , Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888. Based on One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as The Arabian Nights, this orchestral work combines two features common to Russian music and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colourful...

    Op. 35 (1888)
  • Joaquín Rodrigo
    Joaquín Rodrigo
    Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...

    's
    Concierto de Aranjuez
    Concierto de Aranjuez
    The Concierto de Aranjuez is a composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is probably Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century. ...

    (1939) (2nd movement)
  • Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture
    William Tell (opera)
    Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...

    (1829)
  • Howard Shore
    Howard Shore
    Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he won three Academy Awards. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg,...

    's
    The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
    The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
    The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...

     (Film Score)
  • Dmitri Shostakovich
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

    's Symphony No. 8 in C minor
    Symphony No. 8 (Shostakovich)
    The Symphony No. 8 in C minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in the summer of 1943, and first performed on November 4 of that year by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom the work is dedicated....

     (1943) (1st movement)
  • Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 in E minor
    Symphony No. 10 (Shostakovich)
    The Symphony No. 10 in E minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 December 1953, following the death of Joseph Stalin in March that year...

     (1953) (3rd movement)
  • Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 in G minor
    Symphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)
    The Symphony No. 11 in G minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1957 and premiered by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Natan Rakhlin on 30 October 1957...

     (1957) (4th movement)
  • Jean Sibelius
    Jean Sibelius
    Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

    '
    Karelia Suite
    Karelia Suite
    The Karelia Suite, Op. 11, is a collection of orchestral pieces composed by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.The pieces in this suite are drawn from several independent works he wrote in 1893 for a patriotic historical pageant to be presented by students of the University of Helsinki in Viipuri,...

     (1893) and Pelléas et Mélisande
    Pelléas et Mélisande (Sibelius)
    Pelléas et Mélisande, is incidental music in ten parts written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, for Maurice Maeterlinck's 1892 drama Pelléas et Mélisande. Sibelius later on slightly rearranged the music into an nine movement suite, published as Op...

     (1905)
  • Robert W. Smith
    Robert W. Smith
    Robert W. Smith is an American composer, arranger, and teacher.-Biography:Smith was born in the small town of Daleville, Alabama on October 24 1958. He attended high school in Dadeville, after which he left for Troy State University, where he played lead trumpet in the Sound of the South Marching...

    's Symphony No. 2 "The Odyssey" (3rd Movement,"The Isle of Calypso")
  • Richard Strauss
    Richard Strauss
    Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

    ' Ein Heldenleben
    Ein Heldenleben
    Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, is a tone poem by Richard Strauss. The work was completed in 1898, and heralds the composer's more mature period in this genre...

    (1898)
  • Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

    's The Rite of Spring
    The Rite of Spring
    The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...

    (1913) Mainly in the Intro to Part I and the next-to-last dance in Part II, "Ritual Action of the Ancestors".
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

    's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1870) (Love Theme, Exposition)
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker
    The Nutcracker
    The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

    (1892)
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

    's In the Fen Country
    In the Fen Country
    In the Fen Country is an orchestral tone poem written by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams had completed the first version of the work in April 1904. He subsequently revised the work in 1905 and 1907...

    (1904)
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 5
    Symphony No. 5 (Vaughan Williams)
    Symphony No. 5 by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was written between 1938 and 1943. In style it represents a shift away from the violent dissonance of the Fourth Symphony, and a return to the more romantic style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony...

     in D Major (1943) (3rd movement)
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 6
    Symphony No. 6 (Vaughan Williams)
    Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony in E minor, published as Symphony No. 6, was composed in 1946–47, during and immediately after World War II. Dedicated to Michael Mullinar, it was first performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra on April 21, 1948. Within a year it had received...

     in E Minor (1946–7) (2nd Movement)
  • Richard Wagner
    Richard Wagner
    Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

    's Tristan und Isolde
    Tristan und Isolde
    Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

    (1859) (Act 3, Scene 1)
  • John Williams
    John Williams
    John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

    ' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in the United States and India as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is a 2001 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The film is the first instalment in the Harry Potter film series,...

    (film score) (2001)
  • John Williams' Schindler's List
    Schindler's List
    Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...

    (film score) (1993)

Use outside classical music

Though primarily featured in classical music, the cor anglais has also been used by a few musicians as a jazz instrument; most prominent among these are Paul McCandless
Paul McCandless
Paul McCandless, Jr. is an American jazz woodwind player and composer. He is one of few expert jazz oboists, and also plays English horn, soprano saxophone, sopranino saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet, and pennywhistle, among other instruments.He has performed with the Paul Winter Consort and is...

, Jean-Luc Fillon
Jean-Luc Fillon
Jean-Luc Fillon is a French oboist, English Horn player, double bass player, electric bass player, orchestra conductor and composer. He began in 1987 as oboe soloist in the European Symphonic Orchestra, and since 2001, Fillon has made numerous musical compositions that use the oboe and English Horn...

, Sonny Simmons
Sonny Simmons
Huey "Sonny" Simmons is an American jazz musician.He grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing the english horn. At age 16 he took up the alto saxophone, which became his primary instrument...

, and Vinny Golia
Vinny Golia
Vinny Golia is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation....

 (see also Oboists performing primarily outside classical genres). The cor anglais figures in the instrumental arrangements of several Carpenters
The Carpenters
Carpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo, consisting of sister Karen and brother Richard Carpenter. The Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s. Though often referred to by the public as "The Carpenters", the duo's official name on authorized recordings and...

 songs. It has made some appearances in pop music, such as in King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...

's "Dawn Song" on their album Lizard
Lizard (album)
Lizard is the third album by the British band King Crimson, released in 1970. It was the second recorded by a transitional line-up of the group that never had the opportunity to perform live, following In the Wake of Poseidon...

, Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne (band)
Lindisfarne were a British folk/rock group from Newcastle upon Tyne established in 1970 and fronted by singer/songwriter Alan Hull. Their music combined a strong sense of yearning with an even stronger sense of fun...

's "Run For Home", Randy Crawford
Randy Crawford
Randy Crawford is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist...

's "One Day I'll Fly Away
One Day I'll Fly Away
"One Day I'll Fly Away" is a song with music by Joe Sample and words by Will Jennings, performed by Randy Crawford and released in 1980.Joe Sample created the chorus based on Impromptus, D...

", Tanita Tikaram
Tanita Tikaram
Tanita Tikaram is a British pop/folk singer-songwriter, best known for the hits "Twist in My Sobriety" and "Good Tradition" from her 1988 debut album, Ancient Heart...

's "Twist in My Sobriety
Twist in My Sobriety
"Twist in My Sobriety" is a song written and recorded by Tanita Tikaram. Released as a single in 1988 from her debut album Ancient Heart, it was a top ten hit in many European countries, peaking at #2 in Austria and Germany, though it achieved only moderate success in the US and Australia.In 1996,...

", Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....

's "As Tears Go By
As Tears Go By (song)
"As Tears Go By" is a song written by The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, and their manager Andrew Loog Oldham, and was a popular hit for both British singer Marianne Faithfull in 1964 and The Rolling Stones in 1965.-History:...

" and many (e.g. Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...

' and Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

's) versions of "Send in the Clowns
Send in the Clowns
"Send in the Clowns" is a song by Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act II in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Among other things, she...

". In Britain, Tony Hatch
Tony Hatch
Anthony Peter "Tony" Hatch is an English composer, songwriter, pianist, music arranger and producer.-Early life and early career:...

's theme tune to the long-running soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Emmerdale Farm was originally performed on the cor anglais. The cor anglais is also featured in the Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie
Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. , is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Since 1968, he has been a member of the musical group Commodores signed to Motown Records...

 and Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...

 version of "Endless Love
Endless Love (song)
"Endless Love" is a song written by Lionel Richie and originally recorded as a duet between Richie and fellow soul singer Diana Ross. In this ballad, the singers declare their "endless love" for one another. It was covered by soul singer Luther Vandross with R&B singer Mariah Carey and also by...

", and in Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...

's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight
Can You Feel the Love Tonight
250px|thumb|right|Simba and Nala embrace during the "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" sequence."Can You Feel the Love Tonight" is a song from Disney's 1994 animated film, The Lion King, composed by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice. It was described by Don Hahn , Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff as...

" and "Candle in the Wind 1997
Candle in the Wind 1997
"Candle in the Wind 1997" is a rewritten and rerecorded version of Elton John's own 1973 hit "Candle in the Wind" that was released as a tribute single to the late Diana, Princess of Wales....

". The song "A Mutual Friend" by the band Wire
Wire (band)
Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...

 from the album 154
154 (album)
154 is the third album from the band Wire, released in 1979 on EMI imprint Harvest Records in the UK and Europe and Warner Bros. Records in America. It was first issued on CD in 1987 by EMI Japan and later reissued by Restless Records in 1989...

uses a cor anglais.

Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 holds a cor anglais on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...

. The instrument also features in the 2005 film American Pie Presents: Band Camp (referred to as the oboe).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK