Two Baroque Horn Concertos that Should be Performed More Often

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If a Baroque concerto is heard, it is most often the Telemann or maybe the Forster. These are fine works but there are alternates that really should be played more often, they are better works than a lot of the music trumpet players perform from the same era.

One would be the Graun Concerto in D. It is a very well written and accessible Baroque concerto, available from Birdalone. The other Baroque concerto I would recommend highly is the Rollig Concerto in D, also published by Birdalone. Both of these works are not played that often but have been known since the 1960s at least. The score sources are in a collection of Baroque manuscripts in a library in Lund, Sweden.

I would like to especially note one curiosity about the Graun. The manuscripts only list the surnames of the composers and in this case the composer is noted only as being named Graun. The manuscripts in the collection are of works of composers working in Dresden and there were two composers of the time in Dresden named Graun who were brothers. So we really don’t know which one it was but in either case it is a very nice work.

Both lay very well on descant (my preference) and as they ascend only to written high C for horn in D are pretty playable on a double horn as well.

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