Richard Pennycuick asks:

>why is the French horn fingered with the left hand?

Some theories:

Used originally to be a hunting instrument played on horseback, no valves
but held by right hand through horn so that bell was near the elbow for
stability.  Longer instruments were "worn" over left shoulder and lifted
by the right hand to the mouth.  This still allowed holding of reins(?) (of
horse) by left hand whilst blowing.  Predominantly right-handed swordsmen
probably dictated left handed steersmanship in all cases? I heard mention
of some prussian army manuals where the holding side of reins was
standardised when this question was raised about 20 years ago.  If someone
can come up with the answer to why hore reins are generally held in the
left hand (maybe they are not...) then it may contribute to the overall
plot.

Then instrument developed to more stationary usage where right hand was
inserted into bell to facilitate hand-stopping of notes to "get the notes
which aren't available naturally on the harmonic series" of the length of
instrument, this may have been a technique better executed by most with the
right hand.

A bit after that, post Mozart, Pre-Brahms, some bright spark wanted to add
lengths of tubing by a valve mechanism to obviate the changing of length of
the instrument by the adding of "crooks" to the mouthpipe end.  Said spark
discovered that by using 3 valves he could obtain all the notes of the
chromatic scale (near enough) and thus was born the valve-horn.

Later still some other spark decided that three valves weren't enough to
cover all the Keys so started developing "double" horns.  Problem is that
the old horns were conical in nature.  The three valves add about 20-30
inches of cylindrical tubing (due to the fact that it is very difficult to
slide conical tubing without it leaking).  "Double" and now "triple" horns
have inherently cylindrical tubing.  This changes the sound character of
the instrument, in fact, there is about as much cylindrical tubing on a
modern horn as there is on a trombone.

This is why BTW the Vienna Philharmonic play on "Bohmian natural-horns
with three valve pump systems and F-crooks" with a design dating back to
early 1800's.  Very little cylindrical tubing, different sound, the sound
probably that Bruckner, Brahms and Mahler would have known and written for
"no doubt".  (Another debate).

There are however right hand-held parforce-horns and some manufacturers
now make left-handed (right hand fingered) horns for those who need
them, playing these in a section with other sided instruments is not
recommended.....  the real reason is that if the horn were fingered with
the right hand, more hornplayers would drop their mute more often.

Kind regards,
Anthony Morris (in a more factual mood)
agmdigital