Then: Double Horn and Descant at the Audition. Now?

Before (and after) winning Third Horn in Nashville in 1991 I took a lot of auditions. Early on, I owned just one horn, and in a fairly early audition I advanced and had to play a very high excerpt from Haydn 31 on a big double horn. I did not win and decided then and there that I had to get a horn with a high F side. I was a Doctoral student at that time.

At first I actually purchased a triple, but it was a very early one and not well suited to playing the full range of excerpts. I only used it on one audition. I replaced that with a descant and used it in combination with a double horn in the majority of the auditions after that date. For sure I used both horns in the Nashville audition I won. That one I drove to, but in that time frame I flew with two horns to a number of auditions as well. Obviously, carry on size was not watched so carefully as it is today.

A double and a descant in combination are in many ways ideal for a high horn audition, you can chose the best horn for each excerpt and play with a higher level of confidence.

Today though, travel with two horns is not really an option by air. So what does the modern horn player do?

Triple horns are more and more widely played by top professional high horn players. A triple can play it all, but for some excerpts not quite as well as combo of two horns. For a light, soft excerpt a descant can be a better choice, and for a low, loud excerpt a double would be a better choice. But it is nice to stay on the same horn all the time; it does eliminate some guesswork to be sure, as everything feels the same.

So what are you to do? Personally I would still be inclined to try to figure out how to get the double and the descant to the audition. But this may be a reflection of my generation of player. It is a bit of a tricky professional minefield to negotiate carefully. If you are approaching the level of being a player looking seriously at high horn auditions, be sure to look into descant and triple horns more, they are serious tools for the advanced horn player.

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1. From the Mailbag: What is the Full Range of a Descant Horn?
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3. Orchestral Excerpts from one of My Audition Tapes
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5. Bad Audition=Quit Horn?
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