o C7.], actual sounds [Notation: F2 to F6.].

[v.03 p.0494] [Illustration: FIG. 1. (From photographs lent by M. Victor
Mahillon.)]

Like the clarinet, the basset horn is a transposing instrument, its music
being written a fifth higher than the actual sounds. The treble clef is
used in notation for all but the lowest register. The technical
capabilities of the basset horn are the same as for the clarinet, except
that the extra low notes from A to F (actual sounds) can only be intoned
slowly and _staccato_; the notes of the upper register being better
represented in the clarinet are seldom used in orchestral music.

The tone of the basset horn is extremely reedy and rich, especially in the
medium and low registers; the tone colour is similar to that of the
clarinet without its brilliancy; it is mellow and sensuous, but slightly
sombre, and therefore well adapted for music of an elegiac funereal
character.

The basset horn flourished mainly in Germany, where at the end of the 18th
century it was the favourite solo instrument of many celebrated
instrumentalists, such as Czerny, David, Lotz, Springer, &c. Among the
great masters, Mozart seems to have been foremost in his appreciation of
this beautiful instrument. In his _Requiem_, the reed family is represented
by two basset horns having independent parts, and two bassoons. Mozart has
also used the instrument with great effect in his opera _La Clemenza di
Tito_, where he has written a fine obbligato for it in the aria "Non piu di
Flori"; in _Zauberfloete_; and in chamber music, viz. short adagio for two
basset horns and bassoon, and another for two clarinets and three basset
horns (Series 10 of Breitkopf & Haertel's complete edition). Beethoven
employed it in his _Prometheus_ overture. Mendelssohn used it in military
music, and in two concerted pieces for clarinet and basset horn with
pianoforte accompaniment, in F and D min., opp. 113 and 114, dedicated to
Heinrich and Carl Baermann.

The archetypes of the basset horn are the same as those of the clarinet
(_q.v._). The basset horn was the outcome of the desire, prevailing during
the 16th and 17th centuries, to obtain complete families of instruments to
play in concert. The invention of the basset horn in 1770 is attributed to
a clarinet maker of Passau, named Horn, whose name was given to the
instrument;[2] by a misnomer, the basset horn became known in Italy as
_corno di bassetto_, and in France as _cor de basset_. In