French horn
Frank-Gemmill, SCO, Manze, Queen's Hall, EdinburghMonday, 06 March 2017
March 2017 is MacMillan month in Scotland – well, in Glasgow at least, with certain events spilling over into Edinburgh and other cities too. It’s not as if we don’t already get to hear quite a bit of Sir James’s music north of the border, but it’s... Read more... |
Jim Rattigan's Pavillon, Seven Arts, LeedsSaturday, 19 November 2016
French horn players active in jazz are thin on the ground: there’s the long-deceased John Graas, and composer and polymath Gunther Schuller’s career took in collaborations with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Unlike most brass instruments, the horn... Read more... |
BBC Young Musician 2016Monday, 16 May 2016
What makes a musical performance? The final of Young Musician 2016 presented five judges with this philosophical teaser to ponder. For the previous 90 minutes three contestants with three radically contrasting styles of delivery cleared every bar in... Read more... |
'Paul said he would like orchestral instruments. John couldn’t be bothered'Wednesday, 09 March 2016
A decade ago I was sent to interview George Martin and his son Giles about Love, the remarkable remix of the Beatles catalogue which they created for Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show in Las Vegas. After the interview proper, in which both talked... Read more... |
We Made It: Horn Maker Tom FisherSunday, 06 March 2016
Ask anyone for the name of a violin or piano maker, and they’ll probably be able to summon up Stradivarius and Steinway. What about horns? Do concertgoers ever look closely at these instruments – noticing, perhaps, that some have four, others five... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the East Neuk Festival: Church strings, garden hornsMonday, 13 July 2015
A peninsular spirit of place and the greatest of instrumentalists drew me a second time to the eastern nook (hence the “Neuk”) of Fife. But could a second report for theartsdesk be justified – wasn’t the premise the same for the 11th East Neuk... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Mozart, PoulencSaturday, 17 January 2015
Bach: St John Passion Berliner Philharmoniker, Members of the Rudfunkchors Berlin, Soloists/Sir Simon Rattle, with staging by Peter Sellars (Berliner Philharmoniker)You'd happily settle for an audio recording of Sir Simon Rattle's version of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Konstantia Gourzi, Ravel, Sarah WillisSaturday, 03 January 2015
Konstantia Gourzi: Music for piano and string quartet (ECM)You rather hope you'll bump into and make the acquaintance of the Greek composer Konstantia Gourzi. And that she'll be sufficiently impressed by the force of your personality that she'll... Read more... |
10 Questions for Horn Player Sarah WillisMonday, 18 August 2014
Sarah Willis's day job is as a member of the horn section of the Berlin Philharmonic. In recent years she has also become a roving ambassador for the instrument and a familiar face presenting and interviewing on the Berlin Phil's Digital Concert... Read more... |
Unfinished business: completing MozartSaturday, 03 May 2014
Horn concertos don't make frequent appearances in the standard concert repertory and when they do it will usually be a work by Mozart or Richard Strauss. It wouldn't be entirely true to say that horn players feel keenly the lack of a serious core of... Read more... |
I Found My Horn: Afterlife of a BookMonday, 17 March 2014
When a book is published, there are broadly speaking three alternative fates which lie in wait. It goes global, it sinks without trace, or it sells modestly and steadily to the readership for whom it was intended. There is, however, another... Read more... |
Schwanewilms, Hallé, Stenz, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterThursday, 06 February 2014
“How tired we are of travelling,” the soprano sings, underscored by a solo horn. The end is near: “Is this perhaps death?” No fuss, no drama, but weariness and a calm acceptance. Since Strauss and his wife Pauline were in their eighties and living... Read more... |
