Klarinet Archive - Posting 000575.txt from 1996/03

From: mlfl%vax.ox.ac.uk@-----.BITNET
Subj: Handel & basset horns
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 13:50:55 -0500

Surely the basset horn wasn't invented till the 1760s at the earliest. Handel
was fairly dead by then. Perhaps someone had substituted basset horns for
tenor oboes ("Tailles de hautbois") - the key would have been the same - under
the misguided impression that they sounded more like tailles than the modern
cor anglais. This seems fairly improbable and not too sensible, though. On the
other hand, the writer could have been referring to some kind of small brass
horn - rather more likely ...
Roger Shilcock (roger.shilcock@-----.uk)