Re: Lilypond's English Horn MIDI instrument is non-transposing?

[Graham King]

[OT] It goes back beyond Mahler.  St. Gregory is reputed to have said of some 
fair-haired English slaves for sale in Rome, "Non Angli sed Angeli."

> On 15 Jan 2022, at 10:58, Lukas-Fabian Moser <lfm@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi Wol,
> 
>> Out of curiosity, and speaking as a Brit! what on earth is an "English 
>> Horn"? Is the instrument the English call a Cor Anglais?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> The etymology seems to be a bit involved here - although it seems certain 
> that the name has nothing to do with England. :-) Two standard explanations 
> essentially amount to a derivation either from "angelic" (referring to 
> instruments held by angels in Christian imagery) or "angled" (referring to 
> some of the various forms of the instrument) in some language.
> 
> On a semi-related note: Surprising as, for example, a connection between 
> "English", "Anglais", "Angelic" may seem, there is a funny matter in German 
> that, coming from the 19th century Wunderhorn poetry collection, survives in 
> Mahler's fourth symphony: "Wir führen ein englisches Leben", which a 
> modern-day German speaker would naively interpret as "We live an English 
> life" (and maybe think of tea time and fish and chips), but which undoubtedly 
> actually means "We lead an angelic life": Engel = Angel, Eng(e)lisch = 
> Angelic.
> 
> Lukas
> 
>