The more familiar form, with an upturned bell, was developed in Switzerland in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, one modern authority says that at the time it was a straight instrument eleven feet long, and this form persisted in Austria until the nineteenth century. This description by the naturalist Conrad Gessner calls the instrument a lituus alpinus and says it is 'nearly eleven feet long, made from two pieces of wood slightly curved and hollowed out, fitted together and skillfully bound with osiers'. įrom late antiquity there are mentions of 'alpine horns', but the earliest secure description of the wooden instrument now called an ' alphorn' dates from the sixteenth century. In Europe they came to be symbols of royalty. Apparently of Asian origin, they reached Europe from Byzantium in the tenth or eleventh century, and are first mentioned in French literature in the early 12th century. The olifant or oliphant (an abbreviation of the French cor d'olifant/ oliphant, ' elephant horn') was the name applied in the Middle Ages to ivory hunting or signalling horns made from elephants' tusks.

The genus of animal-horn instruments to which the shofar belongs is called קרן ( keren) in Hebrew, qarnu in Akkadian, and κέρας ( keras) in Greek. This original usage survives in the shofar ( Hebrew: שופר), a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals. History Army signal horn, (cornu), Roman period found in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands An instrument for creating sound made from the horn of an animal Olifant, possibly southern Italian, 11th century Alphorn player near Zermatt Pair of the Brudevælte Lurs, excavated 1797 Cornicen (horn players) from Trajan's ColumnĪs the name indicates, people originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate them in metal or other materials. Alto horn (UK: tenor horn), pitched in E ♭.

E flat major scale french horn