t-p!

Кор-англе - это матушка гобоя!  Я поздравляю тебя с Международным Днем Женщин!  Или с Днем Международных Женщин! 

[ apologies to everyone else, just a bit of Russian National Holiday greeting :-) ]

It's as good for you today as it always was 
Now I feel as if I am gazing into the abyss and seeing just how shallow I am 

Mr Sudden is the man to tell us the truth on this, I guess...  but I was always told "cor anglais" was actually a corruption of "cor anglé" - ie the instrument was "bent", so that it fell under the hands a bit more conveniently?   I don't believe there's anything especially "English" about this alto oboe.  I think the original "use" of the cor-anglais was to play the alto part in oboe bands - which played military music in the days before valved brass instruments could take over this function?

Since oboes appeared out of the shawm and schalmei family, it's not surprising that instrument-makers in different localities approached the problem of making alto-pitched versions (renaissance instruments usually appeared in whole "consorts", with SATB sizes and sometimes higher and lower also) in different ways.  For example there are still schalmei played in bands in Catalunya, in different sizes.

There are some alto and tenor oboes in the V&A's fine collection of old instruments, mostly English-made, and they are yet another solution to the idea. Thomas Hardy (who was a church bandsman himself) mentions something of their use in the days before organs were inflicted on English parochial churches.  Mr Sudden will be unsurprised to hear that it was bad behaviour and drunkenness on the job amongst the wind-players which provided the motivation to replace the church band in Hardy's short story with an organ.  Sometimes I wonder how the decision to make it an organ was reached?   Perhaps they sat down and said "who's the most serious-minded and humourless instrumentalist we can think of, who won't muck around during services, and has no personal life that will prevent him being available for services at short notice?" 

"Perhaps they sat down and said "who's the most serious-minded and humourless instrumentalist we can think of, who won't muck around during services, and has no personal life that will prevent him being available for services at short notice?"

Many years ago, in my church boy chorister days, we had an assistant organist who fitted admirably all the criteria, with one exception - he was astonishingly foul-mouthed, and his (frequent) wrong notes were usually followed by outbursts of swearing that were clearly audible to the (hugely amused) choir, and on one occasion at least - when a last-minute change of hymn produced the inevitable four-lettered obscenity - in the congregation as well.

But he was, in his fashion, reliable, and I suppose nobody had the heart to sack him

Is anyone an authority on bass drums here. I was admiring someone's instrument when I mention a Verdi drum. Though bigger than normal, it's not that much more powerful. He said that he had played the Verdi Requiem on a drum no bigger than a large tray but to good effect because it doesn't really matter as long as you hit it hard enough. I suppose in that work, the visual impact counts for something.

The tenor horn is a saxhorn rather than a small euphonium (which itself is a small tuba).
Althorn in German. Hindemith wrote a sonata for it.

Yes, unusual piece - it requires the pianist to recite a poem before the last movement...