This fixed bell natural horn is built around a beautiful old hand hammered bell with original hand engraving. The horn corpus reuses the entire bell tail and flare, bell brace, plus the original bell branch. All the other tubing and braces were fabricated here at Matt's Custom Horns using new materials. This horn has a G-master crook, and then a series of couplers (1/2-step, 1-step, and 2-step) that enable it to be played from G-horn to C-basso horn in half steps. The horn also has a center-pull tuning slide.
The bell engraving indicates Heinrich Zalzer Concerto Model; there was no serial number on the single F-horn that donated this bell. I was unable to find any information about Heinrich Zalzer, other than that a company made instruments in Germany and Czechoslovakia and the instruments were likely imported and stenciled with the Heinrich Zalzer name by other companies. I have found instances of horns with that name originating as early as around the 1910s. Based on the heavy patina and the bell construction, I feel pretty confident that this bell is greater than 50 years old. The bell throat is medium size and will be fairly easy to cover with various hand positions.
A majority of the patina has been removed from the bell exterior and bell branch to improve the strength of new solder joints. The patina was left untouched on the interior and exterior of the bell flare--I think it looks great. That patina can be relatively easily removed with some polish and elbow grease if a shinny surface is preferred. The little dings and dents that remain in the bell tail from the straightening effort are a reminder that it has had a rich and long life as a single F-horn.
The crook and coupler sockets as well as the braces were all hand forged; some hammer marks remain evident and are part of the intentional esthetic of this horn.
The horn plays very well. It produces a brilliant clear sound in the shorter horns, a rounder fuller sound in the longer horns. It speaks well in all the dynamic ranges and should be an enjoyable horn for many more years. Additional crooks for this horn can always be made in the future if one desires dedicated crooks for specific horns instead of using couplers.
The serial number of this fixed bell natural horn is: NH 25-001
