Beethoven Rondino

I've been asked to play with Ealing Symphony Orchestra this weekend (their regular first horn is busy elsewhere), for a special concert to honour Spencer Perceval, who became Prime Minister 200 years ago this year, and was assassinated in office 3 years later, the only British Prime Minister to have been killed in office. He came from Ealing, and a plaque dedicated to him is being unveiled on Saturday October 3rd at 7pm in All Saints Church, Elm Grove Road, followed by a concert in his honour, during which the local MP Stephen Pound will give a short talk about him. If you are in the area, do come along - tickets are just £4.

I'm playing in 2 pieces, the Dvorak Serenade for Wind, and the Beethoven Rondino for wind octet. I've played the Dvorak many times, it's a staple of the wind ensemble repertoire, but I've never got round to playing the Beethoven before, though I've heard recordings of it. I haven't been given the part yet, so I decided to print off the score from IMSLP. (IMSLP is an absolutely wonderful resource if you need to study any out-of-copyright music. I can't recommend it highly enough.)

And it is a delightful little piece with some very prominent horn parts - a fact made very clear because Beethoven puts the horn parts on the first 2 staves of the score, followed by the oboes, clarinets and bassoons.

Keeping with my recent theme of musicality, I thought I'd write a bit about how I approach this piece when practicing. Technically the piece is not overly challenging, but it will need to be played musically if the audience is going to enjoy it.

So, first things first. The piece is Andante, obviously intended to be a steady 4 quavers to a bar. It is in Eb major, and the horn parts are written transposed in Eb. It's a nice gentle speed for a horn tune - very characteristic of the instrument. It's the sort of speed in which many great horn solos have been written. Unless the group uses a conductor, the horn will lead off and so has to set the initial speed. It mustn't go too fast, otherwise the 2nd horn will murder me when he has to play demisemiquavers later in the piece, but it mustn't be allowed to drag. A nice steady walking pace, perhaps quaver=80 or thereabouts.

The first horn has the tune for the first 8 bars. It's a nice simple tune, 2 four-bar phrases, in each phrase the first and 3rd bars are repeated and the 2nd & 4th bars have a little variation. From all the slurs everywhere, it is clear that everything has to be very legato. This is a singing solo, the sound has to be projected but smooth and with the appearance of not being overly loud. The 2nd bassoon has a countermelody in the bass, and the 2nd horn and the clarinets are providing harmonic filling.

So, there are various choices I have to make with the opening solo.

Breathing: From the fact that there are tenuto instructions on the crotchets in bars 1 & 2, it is clear that there should be no break for breath after either crotchet. That means that I must take the whole of the first 4 bars in a single breath to give continuity to the phrase. Beethoven reinforces the point by putting in a nice quaver rest at the end of bar 4. That quaver is in fact tacet for the whole group. There's no mistaking how you are expected to breathe.

Grace note: Should the grace notes at the start of bars 2 & 4 be on the beat or before? Just before the beat seems to me to sound much better, it allows the 4 semiquavers to be nice and even, and trying to co-ordinate an on-beat grace note with the staccato bassoon quaver seems unnecessarily awkward. So ahead of the beat is what I'll do, unless the conductor or the group overrule me in rehearsal. Music making is a group activity - you work out together what is best and will achieve a good performance.

Dynamic changes: There aren't any marked dynamics apart from the initial p, but should anything be done beyond a steady piano throughout? Looking at it, I'm inclined to put a bit of a crescendo into bar 5 to make the first half of the 2nd phrase a bit stronger, then then drop down a notch for bars 7 & 8 to make a bit of an echo. It just provides that bit of variation to keep the audience interested.

2nd clarinet and 1st bassoon take the tune for the next 2 bars, and 1st oboe and 2nd clarinet take it for the following 2 bars, after which there is a tutti forte recapitulation of the opening phrase. Although the 1st horn is marked forte in bars 13-16, and only piano when it has the tune in bars 1-8, you shouldn't play much louder, since you don't have the tune and are providing harmonic filling. The extra sound will come from all the other instruments taking a step up in dynamic and this being the first point at which all 8 players and playing at once.

The next 8 bars for me just contain some repeated semi-staccato semiquavers, pianissimo. 1st clarinet has the tune, everyone else is accompanying. I'll need to listen out carefully to make sure that the dynamics match (so the clarinet can come through without forcing) and also to match the length of the staccato notes - we will want all 5 instruments with those semiquavers to be doing them in the same style. Although the semi-staccato marking is only written in full for the first bar, it is clearly intended to be played the same to the end of the passage.

After the repeat, the oboe takes the tune, and 1st horn has an arpeggio passage. This isn't tune, it is a combination of supporting harmony and rhythm. I think I'll play the semiquavers a bit detached (we will be in a church, the acoustic will probably be a bit muddy) and then the quavers more legato.

The horns are mostly doing supporting stuff for a while, so all the principles I wrote about in the articles on the Eroica apply here, until we come to the double bar and the second subject.

At this point it all gets a bit darker as the piece modulates from a carefree Eb major into a much darker Bb minor. (The key signature isn't changed to reflect this, but you can work it out from the extra accidentals written in.) 1st horn has the tune again, but the accompaniment is even more pared-down than at the start - just 1st bassoon & 2nd horn playing quavers. There's no supporting rhythm, just a bit of harmony below. The tone and phrasing has to reflect this darker mood.

The first 8 bars are 2 repeated 4-bar phrases. In other circumstances I might consider echoing the 2nd set, playing it quieter for a contrast, but it doesn't seem appropriate here, the tension is intended to build through the next 8 bars which have a similar rhythm but are a tone higher. So I might do the the very slightest crescendo through the whole 16 bars to maintain this slight sense of menace, and drop back to pianissimo for the semi-staccato detached quavers in the 17th bar after the key change.

Although it's not written in to the horn part, the pianissimo is clearly intended to last only 3 notes, and the solo piano to return on the high G crotchet. The sf markings on the Ab notes are not major accents, it is just leaning into the note a bit, everyone does it the second & third times.

And with a pair of hairpins on two crotchets, we return with relief to the sunlit uplands of Eb major and a recapitulation of the original tune, with some small variation in the notes of the tune and a much busier accompaniment including 1st bassoon playing an Alberti bass below you. It's very important to make the recapitulation sound like a homecoming. The audience have been on a difficult journey, but they are back home safe now and can rest & relax.

The horns are now mostly supporting for a while, though 2nd horn has a busy demisemiquaver arpeggio passage for a few bars, which will probably be easier played all with 1st valve on the F side.

And we finally come to the coda, where the whole group shuts up and it is just the two horns with the tune and a bit of harmony. It's the same tune as at in the first 4 bars of the piece, but there is now a nasty twist - the 2nd & 4th bars of the original phrase are now repeated, marked con sordino. Definitely an echo effect intended here, but it is going to be tricky to get mutes in and out so quickly.

This is perhaps the earliest use of the con sord instruction for horns in Beethoven's work - about the only other example that comes to mind is the closing solo in the slow movement of the Pastoral Symphony.

But enough of history, there is still the need to work out how to play the con sord passages. For the 1st horn part, the answer to me is fairly straightforward. Even with the mute on a cord round my wrist, there's not time to swap between mute and hand. I don't want to play the open bars with the mute half-inserted, I don't like the effect on my tone. So I'm not going to attempt to use the mute, I'm going to play those bars handstopped. I can get a nice echo effect that way. But the second horn is also con sord, and playing in a much lower register, going down to a pedal C (actually Bb once you take into account the transposition). Handstopping doesn't work so well down there. Quite how we will address that is something we'll have to work out in rehearsal. There are various options available, and we'll have to see which works best for the player concerned. If I were playing it, I would be inclined to handstop the first con sord bar, and then handstop the first note of the next one, and just play the remaining two quavers (the low G and the pedal C) as quietly as possible, but not stopped.

So there you are. It's a small piece. It doesn't have the grandeur or drama of the Eroica symphony, but it has its musical and technical challenges, and I hope the audience will go home thinking "I hadn't heard that Beethoven piece before. It was rather beautiful, I'd like to hear it again sometime."

Eroica third movement

(Different prints of the score have differing opinions as to how the bars should be numbered, particularly in this movement. I'm going by the Eulenberg edition miniature score, which you can view online here.)

When performing this symphony the horns will be judged by how they play this movement, particularly the Trio section.

Apart from a few quiet notes, the horns' first entry is at bar 93. Although it is a sudden ff entry (after a steep 1-bar crescendo by the rest of the orchestra) you are part of the texture. A solid sound, but you don't need to try and drown everyone. The same goes for the other loud passages at 123 and at 159.

Now for the Trio. The choice of dynamic for the opening is very confusing, because you have just finished the Scherzo section with accented notes within an ff dynamic. And the start of the Trio doesn't include a dynamic marking for the horns, except for the sf on the second note, and yet there is a gradual crescendo only to f at the end of the passage. That implies that the start ought to be relatively soft - something which is reinforced by the fact that the rest of the orchestra is marked p at 173 and similar places.

Essentially there are two common approaches to this. One is to start at about the dynamic as you finished the Scherzo and crescendo from there. The other is to decide that Beethoven intended the Trio to start softly and crescendo only to f. I prefer this second approach, for what I think are a number of good reasons.

1. The orchestra's intervention at 173 and similar places isn't drowned
2. The first horn doesn't have to scream up to the top C, but can play it at a more comfortable dynamic
3. The 2nd horn's low notes at the end of the crescendo have a chance of actually being heard.
4. The sf held notes at 240, 248 & 256 can be permitted to just sing once the accent has been completed, and can have a beautiful tone without being forced.
5. A forte climax will be quite loud enough and give a contrast the orchestra's piano entry at 181.
   

I suggest you start at a solo p, and have the sf within that context, crescendo to f (really mf) and drop back down to the same p level when the theme is repeated at 182, so that you can crescendo all over again. If you decide to play this way, get everyone to mark in p at all the appropriate places in their parts, otherwise somebody is absolutely bound to forget on the night, because of confusing parts and the "tradition" of playing it all pretty loud.

Use the same dynamics when the theme returns at 228. The audience is expecting the passage to be exactly the same before, but Beethoven puts in a surprise at bar 236. Instead of the first horn going on up to the top C as previously, all three horns hold the chord for a 2-bar diminuendo. The sf here doesn't need to be a particularly sharp one, just a bit of extra oomph to the front end of the note so you have plenty of space in which to diminuendo. When you repeat the chord 244, give it the same dynamic, and possibly a slightly softer stress as you slur onto the held note at 252.

The other thing that you have to decide on and work out is how you are going to set the balance between the three horns. Is this a solo for first horn with the others accompanying, or is it a joint solo for all three, or something a little bit in between?

My view is that this really is a trio solo for three horns, and 2nd and 3rd need to match the volume of the first. In some ways, the 2nd horn has the most interesting part, with the rapid downward arpeggio at the end of the first two passages. We want to hear that! But as it is low, the 2nd horn will need to push it out and the others not press too hard so that a balance is achieved. The first horn going up to the top C will be heard more or less whatever happens. third horn should slot in so that he is heard but so that the two higher parts don't drown the second. You have to listen to each other carefully in order to work out how to get the effect right.

For the variation on the theme and the held chord at 236, first horn can sing out a little bit more for that held note and the descending passage immediately after.

But the main thing is to enjoy it! If you play it even half-decently, the conductor will give the horns a bow at the end of the performance. Enjoy that as well!

Eroica second movement

We come to the second movement of the Eroica, the Marcia Funebre. The movement is in C minor, horns 1 and 2 are in C, with Horn 3 in Eb, partly to be able to play the third of the C minor tonic chord, partly to be able to play when the piece briefly modulates into the relative major key.

At bar 9, the horns are part of the texture while the oboe has the tune. Except for bar 41 where the fp is briefly exposed, the horns remain in the background as part of the tutti texture until the third horn's ff passage at bar 135.

Most people think this is a solo. It isn't. You are doubled by both clarinets. In fact, the clarinets take over the tune with the violas in the second half of bar 139 when the tune goes into a new key where hand horns cannot easily follow.

In many recordings, this passage is blasted out with all the force the player can muster, and is sometimes doubled for added weight. This is a case of playing Beethoven as if he were Tchaikovsky. There is no need for it. If Beethoven had wanted this to be primarily a horn sound, there are other ways in which he could have orchestrated it to put more horns onto the passage. The intention is for the horn to be a significant part of the sound, but not to drown the rest of the orchestra. Therefore, in my opinion, it should sing out, so you play as loud as you can manage without adding a brassy edge to your sound.

At bar 173 the horns for several bars have a dotted rhythm on repeated notes make sure you accurately position the demisemiquaver. It isn't as short a note as you might initially think. the passage is piano and part of the texture, but you can make it a bit more noticeable without detracting from the tune in the oboe and clarinet by slightly detaching the notes. That will help the orchestra as a whole keep in tempo.

At bar 184, the 2nd horn has a pedal C for horn in C that is held for two and a half bars. It doesn't matter too much if the note is a bit slow to sound, the entry is covered by the strings playing a forte chord, but you want to me sure that the note and tuning is secure by the end of the bar when the chord ends and the oboes take over the tune with the rest of the woodwind in support.

The next exposed moment is for second horn at bar 230, there is more or less nothing else happening along with the held C slurred to a B.

After that, it is all within the texture to the end of the movement.

THAT solo in the first movement of the Eroica

I've had some discussions with people on the Yahoo Horn mailing list concerning the solo at bar 412 of the first movement, and researching the matter I've discovered a few new things.

First of all there is a discrepancy between different editions. Some editions mark the final Ab piano, and others do not. Some editions include a crescendo marking 2 bars before the end of the passage, and some do not.

The first edition, which is available online at the digital archives of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, has the Ab piano and no crescendo before it. But Beethoven was a notoriously poor proofreader, the original manuscript is no longer in existence, and Beethoven's first editions are not known for being particularly accurate. So I wouldn't want to take the first edition as being necessarily authoritative.

Therefore, you are probably going to have to work out for yourself and in co-operation with the conductor how you will approach the end of the solo. Personally, I would not drop the dynamic for the final note. The Ab is the same note as the starting note of the flute's version of the phrase, and so holding the note for a crotchet and then stopping allows for a change in tone colour of the note as the reverberation of the horn note dies and the flute takes over (with the violins doubling an octave lower for the first couple of bars). The flute is also marked dolce at the start of its solo, just as the horn was at the start of its solo 8 bars earlier.

Also, as a purely practical issue, you significantly increase the risk of of cracking the Ab if you suddenly drop the volume when slurring to it.

In discussing this passage with others, it has been suggested (by Kerry Thomson and Richard Chenoweth) that to get a piano Ab the note could be played handstopped, as it would have been in Beethoven's day. I can see where they are coming from, but I disagree for two reasons.

First, I doubt very much whether a subito piano is actually intended, though if it is requested by the conductor, you do it whatever Beethoven's intention was. Second, (as John Dutton has pointed out) hand-horn technique and hand-horn design in Beethoven's day would have allowed the handstopped note to be played with a tone that is quite close to that of an open note. It is far harder on modern wide-bore valve horns to bend the pitch using hand-horn technique without affecting the tone to a much greater extent than Beethoven would have expected to hear. But you don't need to do that, because you have valves! Therefore, when using modern instruments, I think you should use modern techniques and play the note using the valves.

The debate should of course remind you that there no single authoritatively right way to play the piece. What I've provided is how I play it and the reasons behind my choices. But you may disagree and have an alternative approach that works just as well or even better for you. If so, go for it!

Interpreting the Eroica Symphony

Playing Beethoven is a bit strange. Traditionally, we don’t think of Beethoven as requiring the delicacy of touch demanded by Mozart, and Beethoven’s music is often treated by horn players as if he were Tchaikovsky. It is all those sudden forte chords and accents. But in fact Beethoven is far closer to Mozart than to the classics of the late Romantic repertoire, and our playing of Beethoven horn parts needs to be conceived accordingly.

We now realise that the Eroica symphony was a revolutionary work, that launched Beethoven as a truly unique and different talent and provided a decisive break from the classicism of Mozart and Haydn. But Beethoven’s first two symphonies stuck very close to the general layout of the late Mozart symphonies, both in instrumentation and structure, the main innovation being the inclusion of a Scherzo in place of the conventional Minuet & Trio for the third movement of the Second Symphony. That isn’t to suggest that the first two symphonies are in any way unworthy, but they are clearly Beethoven growing into the distinctive sound that would come later. The Eroica is Beethoven’s first serious attempt at moving to something beyond Mozartian classicism in his orchestral writing.

But Beethoven has been so popular for so long that a great deal of tradition has accumulated as to how he should be played, and much of this tradition is quite frankly both historically dubious and musically awful.

So you have to approach this in context. This piece is late Classical, not late Romantic. The orchestra lacks the heavy brass and additional woodwind of later composers. The instrumentation is double woodwind, two trumpets, three horns, timpani and strings, i.e. your standard classical symphony orchestra with one extra horn. The role of the horns is still much the same as it is in other classical symphonies - mainly blending into the middle of the harmonies, and the occasional solo passage sailing out over the top.

The choice of three horns rather than the normal two is interesting. Of course, it is by far from being the first orchestral work to employ more than a single pair of horns, Haydn’s Symphony No. 31 (Hornsignal) and Mozart’s Divertimento No. 2 (K. 131) both use 4 horns, and both in fact have passages for the horns operating as a solo section that bear a significant resemblance to the famous passage in the Trio of the Scherzo of the Eroica. (I strongly recommend you get hold of a recording of both works and have a listen. It will be both enjoyable and instructive.) Adding the extra horn enabled Beethoven to overcome some of the limitations of the hand horn by occasionally crooking the third horn in a different key from the other two. The Marcia Funebre has first and second horns in C while the third remains in Eb.

One other thing needs to be noticed about Beethoven’s habits of notation. Beethoven almost never writes mf as a dynamic. I don't think I have ever seen an mf in any Beethoven orchestral work, in any part except where it was inserted by an ignorant editor. Therefore you should (broadly speaking) treat f as mf and ff as f, and treat repeated f markings on individual notes within the piece as accents within the current dynamic. Therefore ff dynamics do not need to be blasted out as if you were announcing The Last Trump. Generally, they should be played at what in romantic works you would think of as a good solid single forte, without any brassy edge to the tone.

This all sets the context as to how you should approach the work. You need to think about this sort of thing for any work you play - the composer’s intentions, the musical style in which he was working at the time, and the musical forces he used and the capabilities of the instruments of the day. If you leave all this sort of thing to the conductor and just play the notes, something significant will be lost from the performance. The conductor produces no sound in the concert (at least, one devoutly hopes he doesn’t) and so you have responsibility of producing a sound that the audience will enjoy. It isn’t reasonable to expect the conductor to spoonfeed you as to how to produce it.

So with this, let’s look over the detail of the parts, and how you play them. I’ll look just at the first movement in this post and tackle the other movements later. If you want to understand fully what I am on about you need to have a copy of the full score (and not just the horn parts) handy.

The entry for horns 1 & 2 at bar 13 is part of the tutti texture, but the continuation for first horn at bar 15 is exposed (though not solo, you are doubled by the flute and clarinet). But it is still p, we are looking for a nice clear but not overwhelming tone that blends with the instruments you are doubling with. Listen out for them and make sure that you match with them in tuning and style.

The sf notes in the passage from bars 22 to 45 are within the context of a passage that is piano. The horns are not the most significant thing happening here. So the notes should be fairly sharp accents within a piano context, and immediately brought back to piano. There is a sharp 2 bar crescendo at 35 to an ff passage. Again, you aren’t solo here, you are doubled by the trumpets. They provide the edge, you don’t need to blast this.

From bar 57 to 80, the horns should be blending, you are part of the texture and have nothing that the audience should particularly notice.

At 92, the horns have a crescendo passage (horn three joins a bar later). This is part of an overall orchestral crescendo that Beethoven achieves by progressively adding new instruments over a few bars. The sf at the climax of the phrase is a light one, within a piano context. Just an extra bit of weight of the front end of the note, and then pull back immediately before continuing the decrescendo to the end of the bar.

The entry at 107 is part of another classic Beethoven crescendo, this time reaching a more substantial sort of sound. But even though you have a forte general dynamic with sf on individual notes, you don’t blast. Remember, in Beethoven, f means mf, so you play the sf notes as accents within an mf context, immediately dropping back to the background dynamic. The horns are still just part of the texture, even when the dymanic advances to ff at 143.

The entry of horns 1 & 2 at 170 is very much in the background - you are providing harmonic continuity and with the repeated crotchets, just a bit of background rhythm. Watch the conductor carefully and make sure you don’t succumb to the temptation to get ahead of the beat. To add a bit of definition to the crotchets without getting louder, separate them ever so slightly.

The ff entry at 190 is still not solo, you are part of the harmony and so don’t try to overwhelm the tune. The same applies to the entry at 218 (1st horn entering a bar later).

In the passage starting at G (bar 224) the third horn has the first of his independent moments. While 1 & 2 are doing the same held-note and crotchet combination as at 170, the third horn enters two bars later with a countermelody in the form of an ascending arpeggio. Notice that I said countermelody, not solo. Though it does need to be heard, it isn’t the tune, and should be perceived by the audience as an interesting additional thing going on within the music.

At bar 236, the first horn has its first truly solo moment with the ascending quaver passage for one bar. Almost all the orchestra stops to listen to it, so you don’t need to be loud, just clear, since there is almost nothing else going on that you have to compete with. The staccato doesn’t need to be too pronounced, just enough to ensure that the individual notes have definition. How much you need to separate them will depend on the acoustic you are playing in and will have to be judged on the night. You should aim to match the style of the first flute in the previous two bars. The sf at the top of the passage should still be played within a piano context.

The next 80 bars or so contain essentially similar material. The next new thing starts with the bassoon entry at 342. Horns 1 & 2 join in with a similar passage at 347, but you must listen very carefully not just to the bassoons but to all the woodwind, Variations of the tune are weaving in and out in canon, and the horns are in fact one bar behind the main tune, initially still held by the bassoons but later passed on to other instruments as the volume rises. You are part of the texture and still not playing the tune.

At 378 2nd & 3rd horns have held chords in a decrescendo to pianissimo. While this is pp, this needs to be clear as there is little else happening. You have to make sure that you get balance and articulation matched. If anything 2nd horn, being lower, needs to put very slightly more weight on the note in order to make it sound equal with 3rd.

Then we have a true solo moment - for second horn! At 398 you have two bars where there is nothing else moving at all. It is in a register where the horn doesn’t carry all that well, so as it is both solo and relatively low, I suggest that you put it out at a fairly solid mf, even though there is very little else happening that you need to carry over.

At 412, the first horn has its first substantial solo. This is trickier than it looks. It is in F rather than Eb, and that extra tone higher catches people. Also difficult is the slurred Ab at the end after the held G. I’ve heard that Ab cracked many times! So you have to plan how you are going to cope with it. The first decision is whether you are going to breathe at the start of 416, after the first held G. If you can take a big breath at the start of the solo and manage without a breath in the middle, it will sound better musically, but if you can’t, better to take some more air on board to make sure you can manage the crescendo to the Ab. The instruction is dolce, and there isn’t much else happening, so we need projection rather than simple volume. (I’ll write about how to produce a projected sound on another occasion.) As for fingerings, there are a variety of possible approaches. Most players use the Bb side in this sort of range, but the problem is the second-space G in bar 413. If played 1 on the Bb side, this is usually noticeably flat, but if you play just this note on the F side, there is likely to be a noticeable “blip” in the transition between the G and the Cs above before and after.

However, if you incorporate arpeggios in your warmup, cleanly slurring between a G and a C without hitting the intervening Bb harmonic is one of the things you do more often than almost anything else. Therefore you can play the first part of the solo on the F side. I suggest that you play the first 2 bars wholly open on the F side, and then switch to the Bb side. Alternatively, you can play the whole passage on the F side if there is too much difference in tone colour between the two sides of your horn. Do whatever works for you to get the slurs nice and clean. To ensure that you get the slurred Ab cleanly, make sure that you either breathe at 413 or have taken on ample supplies of air at the start of the passage. The crescendo doesn’t need to be huge, and the Ab should be achieved not by tightening the lips but mainly by providing a bit more support to the air column from your diaphragm. Don’t snatch at it, and don’t cut it off too quickly. It is a full crotchet with no staccato and is therefore a moderately long note. Let it sound.

At 520, the horns are playing the tune - not solo, half the orchestra is playing the same notes, but you can enjoy yourselves for four bars. The horns have a bar solo at 539 and again at 541, play piano but projected.

At 593, the 6-bar phrase in 3rd horn is part of the texture. It is doubled by first bassoon and has the same rhythm as all the other woodwind playing in harmony.

At 619, the horns play alternating bars. This is fairly exposed, and you should work to try and match tone volume and articulation between the different players as you each take your own bar. I suggest that the notes are very slightly detached for better definition.

The last exposed passage starts at bar 634. The first horn is solo for 8 bars with 2nd horn joining in with a countermelody. A projected piano is called for here. After 8 bars, other instruments join in, and the horns (with 3rd now joining in) are again part of the texture a bar behind the tune, just as at 347.

The remainder of the movement is contributing to tutti passages.

For the great majority of the movement, the horns are in the background. But this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to take care over what you play. You should take care over the tuning, style, articulation and dynamic of every note, so that the blend is as near perfect as possible. This means that you don’t just follow the conductor and play your part, you have to listen to what is going on around you so that you match what you play to what else is happening. (Of course, all the other players should be doing the same, but you have no control over that. Just do it right yourself.)

The audience will enjoy the performance better as a result, even though most of them will have little or no idea what has gone into achieving it.