Anton Holy

Date of Manufacture:

The arrangement of rotary valves in a triangular pattern was not uncommon among horn makers in Bohemia and the vicinity of Vienna as an alternative to the Vienese pumpen valves. This innovation was no doubt an attempt to reduce the "acoustic resistance" due to the sharp angles of tubing found in the valve clusters of the Vienna horn and in-line rotary valves. Other examples of triangular valve arrangement are known by Josef Müller, Prague; Leopold Uhlmann, Jr., Vienna; Josef Glassl, Graslitz; Jos. Fotter, Mladá Boleslav, Bohemia, Friedrich Gessner, and Josef Wolf. The modern Czech firm, M.Jiracek a Synove, makes a similar Double Horn (Model Nr.101 "Supin") in F and B♭ with four rotary valves arranged in a square. "This unique design allows the airstream to pass through the valves unidirectionally - with acoustic resistance reduced incredibly."

Based on the valve slide lengths this horn should be crooked in F or E♭, however it was received with an A-crook (A=430 hz.).

Albert D. Hackebarth (1854 - 191?) was born in Berlin, Germany on June 20, 1854. He played extra horn in the Bavarian State Opera Hofkapelle Orchestra (Munich) from 1878-1880. That section included Franz Strauss (1822 - 1905), principal, and also the brothers Franz Xaver Reiter and Josef Reiter. Mr. Hackebarth emigrated to the United States in 1880. In 1882 he became second horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1885 he moved to New York to take the position of principal horn in the New York Philharmonic under Theodore Thomas. He was also a member of Thomas' sixty-six-piece orchestra and probably gave the American premiere of Tchaikovsky"s Fifth Symphony on March 5, 1889. In the fall of 1890 he returned to Boston to become the BSO's principal horn. In that position he took part in the U.S. premieres of Don Juan by Richard Strauss (1891) and Dvorak's Eighth Symphony (1892). While in Boston he was a founding member of the Molé Chamber Music Club and the Longy Club. He remained in the first chair of the horn section until the end of 1905-1906 when he shared that position with Max Hess. In 1907 Albert Hackebarth was moved to seventh of eight horns, where he remained until he retired at the end of the 1912-1913 season.

In the above photo, Albert Hackebarth is shown holding a triangluar pattern single horn very similar to the subject horn by Anton Holy.

Special thanks to Peter Balog Documentation Center for Popmusic and New Media, Czech Museum of Music (Centrum pro dokumentaci populární hudby a nových medií České muzeum hudby Praha), for providing biographial information about Anton Holý from the files of Dr. Jindřich Keller (1939-1981) in the Museum's Department of Musical Instruments.

1. The name "Holý" in Czech language means "bare" or "bald", and has no religious significance. Some immigrants to the U.S. have changed it to "Holly."
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2. According to James Naughton: "The second half of the [nineteenth] century saw strengthening of the status of Czech language and culture vis-a-vis German within the Lands of the Bohemian Crown; this included steady advances in Czech educational provision at all levels. After the establishment of a new constitution in 1861, triggered by Austrian defeat in Italy, Czech claims to historic state rights were promoted by middle-class nationalist politicians, led by Rieger, who for some years pursued this goal by boycotting both the Vienna Reichsrat and the Bohemian diet. The 1866 Austro-Prussian war, which resulted in Austrian defeat at Königgrätz (Sadová, near Hradec Králové) and a brief Prussian occupation of Prague, led to further constitutional change, in the form of the 1867 Compromise or Ausgleich, under which Hungary received far-reaching autonomy. Attempts to replace Dualism by a tripartite solution giving Bohemia its own historic autonomy foundered in 1871, lacking support from German Liberals, Hungarians and the Emperor. Franz Joseph was never crowned in Prague with the crown of St. Wenceslas. In 1878-9 the Czechs recognised the failure of their policy of passive resistance by returning to the Bohemian diet and the Reichsrat, joining a government coalition under Count Taaffe along with the German clericals, aristocrats and Poles. In return Czech was designated an “outer” language, recognised for public use in courts of law and government offices, and in 1882 Prague University was divided into Czech and German institutions. By the mid 1880s it was the Germans' turn to feel under some threat. By the end of that decade the original Czech nationalist party, known as the “Old Czechs”, had lost ground heavily to the more radical, initially oppositionist “Young Czechs”, but in the mid nineties the Young Czech party itself joined the government of Badeni, who agreed to make Czech an “inner” language. But a storm of German protest forced the rescinding of this change. This was a period of bitter nationalist agitation, accompanied by a good deal of upward Czech economic, social and cultural mobility. The broadening electoral franchise, while strengthening Czech political influence, also undermined the older nationalist parties, especially when in 1907 universal manhood suffrage was introduced for the Reichsrat elections, for this encouraged the formation of new parties reflecting diverse socio-economic interests, such as the Agrarians and the Social Democrats, with a separate Czech Social Democratic party from 1911. Class interests cut across and fragmented nationalist interests, but also vice versa."
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Label :	Anton Holy Plzni Sp. Voj. Vysl. v Plzni
Model:	single
Serial Number:	none
Date of Manufacture:	ca.1890?
Key(s):	F or E♭ (and A?) depending on terminal crook
Valves:	3 rotary (triangular pattern)
Bore:	1.135 cm.
Bell Flare:	with nickel-silver garland
Bell Throat:	6.1 cm.
Bell Diameter:	28.5 cm.
Base Metal:	brass with nickel-silver trim
Finish:	unlacquered
. (click on photos for larger view)

The arrangement of rotary valves in a triangular pattern was not uncommon among horn makers in Bohemia and the vicinity of Vienna as an alternative to the Vienese pumpen valves. This innovation was no doubt an attempt to reduce the "acoustic resistance" due to the sharp angles of tubing found in the valve clusters of the Vienna horn and in-line rotary valves. Other examples of triangular valve arrangement are known by Josef Müller, Prague; Leopold Uhlmann, Jr., Vienna; Josef Glassl, Graslitz; Jos. Fotter, Mladá Boleslav, Bohemia, Friedrich Gessner, and Josef Wolf. The modern Czech firm, M.Jiracek a Synove, makes a similar Double Horn (Model Nr.101 "Supin") in F and B♭ with four rotary valves arranged in a square. "This unique design allows the airstream to pass through the valves unidirectionally - with acoustic resistance reduced incredibly." Based on the valve slide lengths this horn should be crooked in F or E♭, however it was received with an A-crook (A=430 hz.).

Antonin Holý (or Anton Holly¹ ; 1835-1926) was born in Velké, Lohovice near to Radnice. He was the son of Vojtěch Holý, overman (foreman), working earlier as a teacher assistant, and Ann Mitterbach from Jáchymov, Antonin studied lutherie and violin making in Prague. He also became fine cellist and was associated with violinist Ferdinand Laube, the Onříček Family, Antonín Dvořák and Otakar Ševčík. In 1864 he displayed a flugelhorn in C and euphonium, and from 1865 to 1897 he was making and selling brass instruments. He worked in Vienna before settling in Pilsen, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), where he was interested in the musical life and national fight.² In 1880 he received a burgess-ship in Pilsen because of his work and by 1891 he had a workshop at Velesvlavínová st. No. 11. There there is also a listing: "Holy Anton, Weleslavingasse 11. Brass instrument workshop and shop with string instruments and percussion instruments." In addition to supplying musical instruments to Pilsen and vicinity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he also exported to the United States. There are three of his instruments in the Czech National Music Museum: a violin (inventory number E_625), a guitar (E_797), and a cittern (E_1275). Both of Antonin Holý's daughters married inspectors of the State Railways: Marie (b. February 26, 1864) married Václav Komárek and Anna (b. March 17, 1867) married Václav Dobrý. Antonin Holý died in Pilsen in 1926. The second inscription on the bell garland (below), "Sp. Voj. vysl. v Plzni" ( Speciální vojenský vyslanec v Plzni) probably describes Anton Holy's position as the "Consultant to the Military Plenipotentiary of Pilsen."