Looking for music for five or more horns?
The Guide to Horn Ensemble Repertoire by Rebecca Boehm Shaffer can help you. A new easy-to-use reference for horn ensemble music, this book highlights 17 different performance criteria plus objective annotations on general style, extended techniques, and other performance issues.
For more information, sample entries, and to order, visit www.TheHornGuide.com.
David Thompson has reported to the horn list that Jerome Ashby, Associate Principal horn of the New York Philharmonic, has died following a long battle with cancer.
Following on the cheer of the holiday season, I am very sorry to be the
bearer of very sad news. However, I have received word that Jerome Ashby,
associate principal horn of the New York Philharmonic, passed away this
morning after a long battle with cancer. He leaves behind five daughters,
the youngest still in elementary school.I had the honor of working with Jerome when we coincided on the faculty of
the Aspen Music Festival a few years back, but I am sure that many others
who knew him for longer will share their thoughts on their experiences with
Jerome. But I did want to let you all know that we have today lost a very
fine horn player, and a wonderful person - one of the class acts in our
business.
Mr. Ashby's playing can be heard on several cds, as well as the American Horn Quartet's Take 9 recording.
Greetings,
I now have completed my set of recordings of all of published horn ensemble music of Louis-François Dauprat's on Natural horn. The latest releases are tuned at A = 432.
The newest CD’s are:
(CD18) Louis-François Duos opus 13 part 2 (duos 3, 5, & 6)
(CD19) Grand Sextet's opus 10 for natural horns in different keys and Grand Trio's opus 4 for natural horns in E
(CD19a) Grand Trio opus 26 for natural horns in E
I have posted sample sound files of each movement on either www.i-ching-music.com or www.naturalhorn.com there are a lot of sound files, so the CD specific pages load a little slow.
A little about each piece:
Opus13: Most natural horn enthusiast are familiar with Dauprat’s Duets opus 14 in different keys, in those, he really avoids the written high A. After working on the opus 13 duets one understands why. If any note is meant for only fast scales, it is that; it’s a beastly note on natural horn, which he used quite a bit in these opus 13 duets. It is also interesting that he goes through his cycle of possible keys in these duets for just Eb horn in a similar way that he did in Opus 14.
Opus 10: His Grand sextets are his most popular works partially due to his use of the High C horn, which results in high D for the modern horn or concert G's above the treble clef staff! But to me they are inspirational because of the difficulty of writing music for horns in different keys and having it fit together so well.
Opus 4: I have know these since the 1970’s as they were published by a few different publishers then. They were common reading in horn groups. Most of these trio recordings I did in one session.
Opus 26:
The last published and greatest work of Dauprat, from 1826, shows clear signs of an influence by Beethoven. A five movement work of high art and about the most chromatic piece I have ever seen for natural horn.
Two Met Orchestra Members Retire After 46 Years
May 11, 2007
The Met salutes two members of the orchestra retiring this season after 46 years with the company: French horn player Howard T. Howard and violinist Leslie Dreyer.
Howard, who was raised in Montana and eventually found his way to New York via Detroit, was named principal just one year after joining the orchestra in 1961. “I can’t imagine having spent a life any better,” says Howard, who has watched as the orchestra and the horn section have risen to the level of pre-eminence they hold today. (There’s another institution that is also said to have risen to pre-eminence under Howard’s leadership: the notorious green table in the corner of the Orchestra Lounge, home to one of the world’s longest-running poker games.)
“We horn players, we don’t have to skydive,” notes Howard. “A Siegfried call on your own, the Julius Caesar obbligato solo…that’s enough adrenaline.”
Howard Howard was the college roommate of the legendary University of Michigan symphonic band conductor H. Robert Reynolds (who also studied horn).
There's a new network/message board site for horn players to check out! Tony Licata (of the 4 hornsmen quartet) and Stewart De Haro (De Haro Horns) created a new message board where horn players can go and discuss anything about the horn. They are hoping it will branch into something big, which I'm sure it will blossom into a very popular spot! I'm so excited, and looking forward to discussing things with other horn players. Check it out!
The website is: http://com3.runboard.com/bbehindthehorn
If you've not yet heard of FaceBook, it is the next Internet sensation. It is a fantastic networking site that is fun, useful, and addictive. There is a very active horn group, and I have just started and orchestra musician group. Whether you are interested in meeting new people, finding people you know, sharing photos, music, or announcing events, FaceBook is just about the best platform that exists. Check it out!
According to Paul Mansur, Milan Yanchich has died.
I was just notified that Milan Yancich died yesterday at the age of 86. Milan was a good friend and a loyal member of IHS. As I recall he served two or three terms on the Advisory council and contributed much through his business, Wind Music, Inc. He was a fine horn player and played and taught in the Rochester, NY Symphony and Eastman School. He was also an author and supplied us all with a lot of great arrangements for horn choir, for ensembles, and solo materials. If I remember correctly, he was largely responsible for the publication of all the Farkas books. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude and thanks. We shall miss him profoundly. To those who didn't know him, I suggest you read his book, A View From The Rear.
In 2006, You became the Time magazine person of the year. Your contributions to Wikipedia, YouTube and MySpace are changing the way we share, communicate, and view our world. Indeed, these sites entertain and educate us, and they have been made by ordinary people working together to document the things that interest them.
If you are reading this, it is likely that you are a horn player. If you are visiting this site for more than the first time, you might have noticed that I have been expanding it. There is now a section for french horn recordings, which, at the time of this writing, is totally empty. I wanted there to be some nice examples of the Tills, Tchaik-5's, lip trills and high C's, but alas, upon searching the Internet, I was unable to easily find any recordings of horn players playing their horns. I am therefore coming to the conclusion that you haven't been given the right tools and the right forum to do what so many other people have been doing like crazy over the past couple years - documenting and sharing the things that interest and excite them.
Granted, I am not looking for just any old recordings of people playing the horn. On the new videos section of this site you can already find YouTube videos. On MySpace you can also find illegally uploaded commercial recordings that have been ripped from someone's CD collection. These are not what I want to see. Aside from the obvious legal and copyright issues involved in copying commercial CDs to the Internet, we've always been able to get our hands on that stuff just by walking into the record store. What I want to know is, what are you doing with your horn? Here is a list of things that I am missing on the Internet:
These are just examples. Horn players record themselves like crazy. My colleagues and I were already making digital recordings of ourselves in the early '90s when I was in music school. These days making recordings and getting them into an mp3, ogg or wav file has never been easier. Hopefully, HornRoller.com will fill the void that I perceive, and you and your fellow hornists will find fun and interesting ways to use the recordings section of this site.
A new website, High-C.com, has launched. The motto "Higher, louder, faster - dedicated to outrageous feats of musical athleticism" captures the spirit of the site. You can watch videos of classical musicians playing or singing the hardest and most virtuoso works for their instruments. There is a nice video of the Chicago Symphony (Dale Clevenger) doing the Konzertstück. You can also register and post your own videos (links taken from the common video sharing sites such as YouTube, iVideo, Bryghtcove etc.)
As reported by the Baltimore Sun:
Walter A. Lawson, a nationally recognized French horn maker and a former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musician, died Wednesday of heart disease at Reeders Memorial Home in Boonsboro. The former Catonsville resident was 84.
A 1999 Sun profile said, "Walter Lawson and his boys help others make beautiful music. In their hands, fat rolls of sheet metal and long tubes of copper become the graceful curves and polished bells of some of the world's finest French horns."
His horns each took 187 hours to make. His son Paul, a machinist, built the valves. Another son, Duane, polished and lacquered surfaces. Bruce, the acoustician, made sure each horn had the Lawson signature sound, the article noted.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. June 27 at the Bast Funeral Home, 7606 Old National Pike, Boonsboro.
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