A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Waldhorn

WALDHORN (that is, Forest horn), Corno di caccia. The old 'French horn,' without valves, for which Beethoven wrote. The valve horn, necessary for the passages of modern writers, beginning with Schumann, is fast superseding it, and the French horn will soon be as much a thing of the past as a harpsichord; but its tones, and the contrast of its open and closed notes (adding another to the many human characteristics of the instrument)—as in the Allegretto of the Seventh Symphony or the Adagio of the Ninth—can never be replaced, and the want of them will always be a distinct and cruel loss to orchestral music.

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