The English horn, also known as the cor anglais, belongs to the oboe family of double-reed woodwinds, which also includes bagpipes, baritone oboe, bassoon, contrabassoon, heckelphone, oboe, and oboe d’amore. The English horn is the group’s middle instrument. The oboe is the most high-pitched instrument, with the oboe d’amore a minor third lower. The English horn is a fifth lower than the oboe, with the baritone and bass oboes being an octave lower.
The oboe da caccia, which was previously used, was developed into the English horn. Oboe da caccia translates to “hunting oboe,” and it was a popular instrument during the Baroque period. It is slightly longer than the oboe and has a bulb-shaped bell that is sometimes referred to as a d’amore bell. The English horn is frequently played by an oboist whose part has been written so that the player can “double” on English horn.
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, an Italian composer, wrote three volumes of oboe concertos and is credited with being the first to write concertos for the instrument. The English horn was also used in Hector Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture and Symphonie fantastique, as well as Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela. There are also well-known sections in Czech composer Antonin Dvorák’s New World Symphony, as well as the William Tell Overture by Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini and German composer Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
Modern music has also made use of the English horn. Bob Cooper, a well-known instrumentalist, performed jazz solos on the oboe, English horn, and tenor saxophone. Mitch Miller was an accomplished oboe and English horn player who played them in Percy Faith’s arrangements, despite being better known as a pop singer and choir leader who had a hit with “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and hosted Sing Along With Mitch. Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder, a 1946 recording on which Sinatra conducts Wilder’s “Air for English Horn,” among other pieces, is a rare and possibly surprising combination.