Pope Repair: Everything Horn!

Looking for music for 5 or more horns?



Find repertoire to fit your group's

size, artistry, and audience.


The Guide to Horn Ensemble Repertoire by Rebecca Boehm Shaffer examines 272 selected compositions composed for ensembles of five or more horns.


Easy to read charts list pertinent information:


Composer/arranger
Ensemble size and instrumentation
Number of movements
Duration
Score availability and publisher
Level of difficulty
Commission and/or dedication
Endurance level
Transposition
Clefs
Range
Meter changes
Mutes
Multiple tonguing
Unusual notational devices
Instrumentation and extended techniques
Also included are objective annotations limited to general style characteristics, form, extended techniques, and particular performance issues. These give additional information about a particular composition, and help determine if the composition is appropriate for ensemble.



University professors and other players often organize horn ensembles. For those with large studios, this ensemble often consists completely of serious horn students from the university. For many smaller or medium-sized studios, players’ skill levels can range from beginner to advanced, from experienced horn majors and minors, to non-majors, high school students and amateur adults from the community filling out the ensemble.



Selecting music for an ensemble with this varying degree of expertise can be challenging. Publishers’ catalogs typically do not list the specific characteristics of compositions, only the number of horns required and cost of the publication. Occasionally, a brief description of a specific work is found, but it almost never provides important information such as meter, range, endurance, transpositions, or extended techniques that would indicate the abilities of the players needed to perform a composition.



The enthusiastic response by horn teachers and players alike to my doctoral dissertation, A Selected Annotated Bibliography of Horn Ensemble Music, led me to continue documenting horn ensemble music. While this book does not list every work available for five or more horns, it is a useful, up-to-date reference tool that details the body of the repertoire.