Confusing roars and changing clouds: A history of multipart alphorn music

Abstract

Multipart playing on overtone instruments follows its own regularities. We can observe this in the history of polyphony on the alphorn, a wind instrument that is today often played in ensembles of three or four parts. The article is structured into three parts: pre-standardization sources, the establishment of attuned small ensembles, and contemporary practices using differently tuned alphorns. Playing together required a standardization of the instruments and their tuning, which was only established in the middle of the 20th century. Early forms of multipart playing, on the other hand, are usually not organized tonally. The 19th century saw rare public performances in festivities and rituals, with a seemingly random convergence of several sounding elements. In his instructions for multipart alphorn playing in 1971, Johann Aregger wrote that «more than four voices are musically untenable», and composers have followed this restriction until today, with rare exceptions. Through the evaluation of historical sources that have received little attention to date and the information provided by contemporary composers of alphorn music, a comprehensive picture of the forms of multipart musical practice for the instrument emerges. The possibility of mixing different tone series with alphorns of different lengths has recently, since the 1990s, inspired some musicians to create experimental compositions and performances. Various sound ideals emerge, which on the one hand refer to traditional models of consonance, and on the other to timbres and their creative design.