The Cor Solo : History and Characteristics

The focus here is on instruments from the second category--those crooked with tuning-slide or "internal" crooks (alternative tuning-slides of different tube lengths), generally known as the Inventionshorn and in particular as the cor solo. Both instruments have an interchangeable main tuning slide in the middle of the body, rather than at the beginning, between the mouthpiece and the body. The earlier German design, the Inventionshorn, could be crooked into a larger number of tonalities than the later French design, known as the cor solo. The Inventionshorn can be seen as the first attempt to make a horn supplied with tuning-slide crooks. Previously, horns had either been built in a fixed pitch or the pitch could be altered through terminal crooks and shanks. The earliest account of the Inventionshorn comes from Johann Nepomuk Forkel's article in the Musikalischer Almanach für Deutschland (1782), in which the author refers to "Geier" Inventionshorns that had been available for "six years," i.e., since ca. 1776.