(Ger., from Gemse: ‘chamois’).
A medieval folk ocarina made originally from the horn of the chamois, though later from that of any convenient animal (it is classified as an Aerophone: Duct flute). Gemshorns were depicted by Virdung (1511) and Dürer (in a prayer book for Maximilian I, 1515) but seem not to appear thereafter, save in texts deriving from Virdung. From about 1450, organ builders imitated its characteristic ocarina-like quality with the short, wide-scale stop which bears its name; Schlick regarded it as the third most important rank of any organ (see Organ stop).
The gemshorn is blown from the wider end of the horn, which is blocked with a plug of wood or other material, leaving a duct to lead the air to the mouth; the point of the horn is left intact. Virdung shows three finger-holes and a thumb-hole which, if correctly sized, would allow a range of about an octave; as with any other ocarina the pitch produced depends on the total area of the open holes. Thus holes of different diameter can be used in different combinations. The only known surviving gemshorn, in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung, Berlin, has six finger-holes and no thumb-hole (see illustration).
The gemshorn has been revived by the early music movement, initially by Horace Fitzpatrick, and is now available in a family of sizes, from descant to bass, usually of cowhorn, and with a fingering which, for the convenience of players, has been brought close to that of the tin whistle, though the range is still limited to about an octave. The attractive tone quality and ease of fingering has given it a spurious popularity, far greater than it seems to have had in the 15th and 16th centuries.
A. Schlick: Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten (Speyer, 1511/R); ed. E. Flade (Mainz, 1932); Eng. trans. in Bibliotheca organologica, cxiii (Buren, 1980)
S. Virdung: Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511/R; Eng. trans., 1993)
C. Sachs: ‘Das Gemshorn’, ZMw, i (1918–19), 153–6
H. Fitzpatrick: ‘The Gemshorn: a Reconstruction’, PRMA, xcix (1972–3), 1–14
JEREMY MONTAGU