Bath Baroque's principal horn Steven Macallister rehearsing Mozart's Eb Horn Concerto. (Here Steven is playing a hand horn, which is a later instrument to the one shown in the picture on the right.)

The modern horn in the picture is actually two fully chromatic valved horns in F and Bb. The sound is mellow, but the bore of the instrument is also large enough to allow it to be heard even when competing with the rest of the brass section of a modern orchestra!

Click here to hear Steven Macallister playing the opening bars of Handel's Water Music Suite No.2.

Modern F/Bb Conn 8D double horn

With its appearance betraying its hunting origins, the Baroque horn makes a less sophisticated sound than its modern counterpart. Horns like this were almost certainly held by the outside of the bell, though players would have placed their hand in the bell to correct the tuning of certain notes. Keeping the hand permanently in the bell  probably only came in later with the type of hand horn being played by Steven Macallister in the picture at top left.

Click here to hear Steven Macallister playing the same fragment of the Water Music as above on the Baroque horn.

Baroque horn by Halstead/Webb after M. Leichamschneider, Vienna c.1720