featuring Stefan Dohr, horn; Jun Märkl, guest conductor I must have forgotten how much I don’t like change. I didn’t sit in my normal seat today at the concert hall. Due to some unfortunately obnoxious and inconsiderate patrons, I’d been trying … Continue reading NSO’s Fragrance of France
performed by William Purvis (sorry, no YouTube today, but hop on over to the Naxos page featuring this album to hear a few snippets of this vibrant, varied work for solo horn.) Doesn’t anyone here know anything about baseball? … … Continue reading Babbitt: Around the Horn
performed by Richard Watkins, horn; Pauline Lowbury, violin; Christopher Green Armytage, piano (Sorry, no dice on YouTube for today’s piece, but if you want to preview it, you can do so at Hyperion’s page for the piece, whence comes much … Continue reading Simpson Trio for horn, violin and piano
performed by David Pyatt and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Nicholas Braithwaite, or below by Alan Civil and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta under Normal Del Mar Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold was born on October 21, 1921, in Northampton, the youngest of … Continue reading Sir Malcolm Arnold: Horn Concerto no. 2, op. 58
performed by David Pyatt and the London Philharmonic under Nicholas Braithwaite, or below in a piano reduction by Gerardo Diaz, horn; Alex Marshall, piano I personally feel repelled by the intellectual snobbery of some progressive artists… the day that melody is … Continue reading Gordon Jacob: Concerto for Horn and Strings
performed by Gregory Hustis, horn; Steven Harlos, piano Here’s something you might not have heard. We’ve featured Scriabin and his work on the blog before, and it’s almost all been for piano (or with orchestra; this is amazing; and his actual piano concerto [already more than … Continue reading Scriabin: Romance for Horn and Piano
performed by Peter Damm and the Staatskapelle Dresden under Rudolf Kempe, or below by Stefan Dohr and the Oklahoma Symphony under Hansjörg Schellenberger This is very early Strauss. It was written by a very young Richard Strauss to his father, a horn player … Continue reading Strauss Horn Concerto no. 1 in E-flat, op. 11
performed by Tamás Vásáry, Thomas Brandis & Norbert Hauptmann, or below by Dale Clevenger, Itzhak Perlman, and Daniel Barenboim It’s been a while since we’ve seen Brahms on the blog, in fact about nine months, in his fourth and final symphony. Today’s … Continue reading Brahms Horn Trio in E-flat major, Op. 40
performed by Barry Tuckwell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner (from the same album mentioned earlier in the week), or below by Anthony Halstead, natural horn, with The Hannover Band under Roy Goodman This is our first appearance of … Continue reading Carl Maria von Weber: Concertino for Horn in Em, J188 (Op. 45)
performed by Barry Tuckwell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner What distinguished Punto, in a way that one has never heard in any other artist heretofore, was his most magnificent performance, the gentlest … Continue reading Giovanni Punto: Horn Concerto no. 11 in E
performed by Andrew Clark, natural horn; Geoffrey Govier, fortepiano Who is this Beethoven? His name is not known to us. Of course, Punto is very well known. Hungarian Music Critic, in response to a performance of the work by its … Continue reading Beethoven Horn Sonata, op. 17
performed by David Pyatt and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner, or below with Radek Baborák and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra under Jean Jacques Kantorow Here we are with another horn concerto from Mozart for his decades-older friend … Continue reading Mozart Horn Concerto no. 3 in E flat, K. 447
performed by David Pyatt and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner, or below with the fantastic Radek Baborák and the Mito Chamber Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa W. A. Mozart took pity on Leitgeb, ass, ox and fool … Continue reading Mozart Horn Concerto no. 2 in E flat, K. 417
It’s a beautiful instrument. It sings and soars and highlights some of the most spine-tingling, heroic, tragic, powerful, epic, angelic moments in the pieces that we as classical music audiences love and adore. And I couldn’t find an image of … Continue reading Series: The Horn
performed by David Pyatt, horn; Kenneth Sillito, Robert Smissen, Stephen Orton & Stephen Tees, or below by members of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble, with Timothy Brown as soloist (I’d also like to mention Andrew Clark’s recording with Ensemble Galant, … Continue reading Mozart Horn Quintet in E flat, K. 407
I love the French horn. But it has to be one of the most difficult, unreliable, wobbly instruments in the ensemble. In most (rare-ish) cases of a missed entry or high note, a ‘whoops’ of loss of tone or control, the … Continue reading Concert Review: NSO’s Blast of Spring
Fugue for Thought 