Flugelhorn

The German word means wing or flank in English. In early 18th century Germany, a ducal hunt leader, known as a , used a to direct his wing of the hunting party. It was originally a form of signal horn called a , (), a large, semicircular brass or silver valveless horn with a conical bore. Military use dates from the Seven Years' War, where this instrument was employed as a predecessor of the bugle. The first version of a valved bugle was sold in Berlin in 1828 by Heinrich Stölzel, inventor of the first piston valves. The valved bugle provided the Paris-based instrument maker Adolphe Sax, creator of the saxophone, with the inspiration for his B♭ soprano (contralto) saxhorns, on which the modern-day flugelhorn is modelled. == Construction ==

The flugelhorn is generally pitched in B♭, like most trumpets and cornets. It usually has three piston valves, though instruments made in central and eastern Europe are usually built with rotary valves. The flugelhorn's mouthpiece is more deeply conical than trumpet and cornet mouthpieces, but not as conical as a horn mouthpiece. Some modern flugelhorns feature a fourth valve that lowers the pitch by a perfect fourth, like the fourth valve on most euphoniums, tubas, and piccolo trumpets. This adds a useful low range that, coupled with the flugelhorn's dark sound, extends the instrument's abilities. A compact version of the rotary valve flugelhorn is the oval shaped kuhlohorn in B♭. It was developed for the , German church trombone choirs. A bass flugelhorn in C, called fiscorn, is used in pairs in the Catalan cobla bands that provide music for sardana dancers. == Performance ==

The valves on the flugelhorn give it the same facility and agility as the cornet or trumpet, but it can be more difficult to control in the high register from approximately written G, where in general it locks onto notes less easily. It employs the same fingering system, so its similarity in size means it can be played by trumpet and cornet players, with some adjustment to breath and embouchure. The flugelhorn is used frequently in jazz and popular music. It figured prominently in many of Burt Bacharach's 1960s pop song arrangements, and had a solo role in Bert Kaempfert's 1962 recording of "That Happy Feeling". The flugelhorn is found in the Dutch and Belgian (). The flugelhorns have a significant role in these orchestras, often 10 to 20 in number. They are pitched in B♭ and occasionally add an E♭ solo part, although it is often played on an E♭ trumpet or cornet. Flugelhorns have occasionally been used as the alto or low soprano voice in a drum and bugle corps, and it is also a standard member of the British brass band. The 1996 British film Brassed Off features a flugelhorn performance of the Adagio from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez as a pivotal plot device. The solo was played by Paul Hughes. Timbre The timbre of the flugelhorn is softer than the trumpet or cornet. Its wide conical bore dampens the higher frequency partials in the sound to produce a mellow, more rounded tone quality compared to instruments with a cylindrical bore at the same pitch. The sound of the flugelhorn has been described as halfway between a trumpet and a horn, whereas the cornet's sound is halfway between a trumpet and a flugelhorn. Notable players Joe Bishop, as a member of the Woody Herman band in 1936, was one of the earliest jazz musicians to use the flugelhorn. Shorty Rogers and Kenny Baker began playing it in the early fifties, and Clark Terry used it in Duke Ellington's orchestra in the mid-1950s. Chet Baker recorded several albums on the instrument in the 1950s and 1960s. Miles Davis further popularized the instrument in jazz on the albums Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain, (both arranged by Gil Evans) though he did not use it much on later projects. Other prominent flugelhorn players include Hugh Masekela, Donald Byrd, Freddy Buzon, Freddie Hubbard, Tom Browne, Lee Morgan, Bill Dixon, Wilbur Harden, Art Farmer, Roy Hargrove, Randy Brecker, Hugh Masekela, Feya Faku, Tony Guerrero, Gary Lord, Jimmy Owens, Maynard Ferguson, Terumasa Hino, Woody Shaw, Bobby Shew, Guido Basso, Kenny Wheeler, Tom Harrell, Bill Coleman, Thad Jones, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Loughnane of the rock band Chicago, Roddy Lorimer of the Kick Horns, Mike Metheny, Harry Beckett, Till Brönner and Ack van Rooyen. Most jazz flugelhorn players use the instrument as an auxiliary to the trumpet, but in the 1970s Chuck Mangione gave up playing the trumpet and concentrated on the flugelhorn alone, notably on his jazz-pop hit song "Feels So Good". Mangione, in an interview on ABC during the 1980 Winter Olympics, for which he wrote the theme "Give It All You Got", referred to the flugelhorn as "the right baseball glove". Pop flugelhorn players include Probyn Gregory (Brian Wilson Band), Ronnie Wilson of The Gap Band, Rick Braun, Mic Gillette, Jeff Oster, Zach Condon of the band Beirut, Scott Spillane of the band Neutral Milk Hotel, Terry Kirkman of the band The Association, Annie Chappell and Rashawn Ross of the Dave Matthews Band. Marvin Stamm played the flugelhorn solo on "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" by Paul and Linda McCartney. Classical flugelhorn players include Sergei Nakariakov and Kirill Soldatov. == Repertoire ==

The flugelhorn appears occasionally in orchestral music. Works with flugelhorn include Igor Stravinsky's Threni (1957), Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 (1958), and Michael Tippett's Symphony No. 3 (1972). The flugelhorn is often used for the post horn solo in Mahler's Symphony No. 3 (1898), and for the soprano flicorni called for in Ottorino Respighi's Pines of Rome (1924), intended to be played on replicas of the buccine from Ancient Rome. In H. K. Gruber's trumpet concerto Busking (2007), the soloist is directed to play a flugelhorn in the slow middle movement. == References ==