Playing the French hunting horn on the Flemish Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage

The musical art of playing the French hunting horn was inscribed on the Flemish Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019. In 2024, the playing of Fiirst-Pless- and Parforce hunting horn was also inscribed on that list. To illustrate the importance of ethnomusicological fieldwork in safeguarding musical practices, this article discusses the processes that led to these recognitions. In safeguarding intangible heritage, it is crucial that heritage communities retain control over their practices, deciding what to transmit and how. Heritage institutions can facilitate the safeguarding. To do so, CEMPER adapted existing models to explore the viability and sustainability of music traditions and applied these to the hunting horn practices in Flanders. Bringing the expertise of heritage professionals and the bottom-up initiative of the heritage communities together, fieldwork turned out to be a key tool to engage the Flemish groups who play the hunting horn to identify the tradition s strengths and weaknesses, and to assist the communities in developing appropriate safeguarding actions for hunting horn in Flanders, Belgium.