French Horns

[CeXzer]

I'm studying Liszt's Les Preludes and I noticed that the French Horn parts seem to be written in concert pitch, but then it has high notes, like G above the highest line of it's 5 treble lines. What's the deal with this, can anyone shed some light?
It can't be in F, it wouldn't fit, and to me it doesn't seem to be an octave higher neither for it wouldn't sound right (when comparing to a live recording).

Thanx.

[loogoo]

Check the instrument listing on the front page of the score (if there is one). A lot of the time French Horn parts are written with no key signature which is different than writing in 'C'. I ran into a similar situation with Ravel's Pavane for a dead princess. The horn is actually in G and written with no key signature so that it looks like it's written in C - in other words, written C actually sounds G. Can be quite confusing.

[CeXzer]

Thanx, but it can't be it, because it wouldn't fit the harmonies then.
It only fits if it's written in concert pitch actualy, so it must be an octave higher and it's only my ears, or I don' know :)
edit: O, and the instrument listing only says "4 corni".

[danpowers]

I have a Kalmus edition of Les Preludes. According to my score, the horns are in C most of the time, which means they sound an octave lower than written. At several points the transpostion changes to E, so they'd sound a minor sixth lower than written.

Your score should say exactly what the transpostion is. If it doesn't, then something's wrong.

[KevinKauai]

Here's a handy-dandy transposition chart that I found through the good graces of another chatter today (on the GPO chat):

English Horn -7
Bb Clarinets -2
A Clarinets -3
Bass Clarinet -12
Contrabassoon -12
French Horns -7
Trumpets -2
In most "full scores", Bb clarinets and trumpets will be in (duh!) Bb (or a "C" on the score will sound as a Bb). This means that to play the score on a keyboard as indicated you would set the "tranposition" on your sequencer to -2 (two semi-tones down). Similarly for English Horn and French Horns (which are typically indicated as "in F", which is 7 semi-tones down from a "C" as indicated. (The Bass Clarinet and Contrabassoon are included here simply as a reminder that they sound an octave below where they are logically written.) Running across and "A Clarinet" is rather rare.

The rule of thumb for transposition is this: If you should run across an instrument that is indicated "in G" simply count the number of semi-tones difference between "C" and "G" (which would be -5). Set your transposition to that number (-5) and play the line for that track as written.

I hope this helps clarify. KevinKauai