Historically Uninformed Reviewer?

In the Arizona Republic this morning I was greeted by an interesting review of the Phoenix Symphony Baroque Ensemble concert. Music director Michael Christie has recently promoted an initiative to have more “historically informed” performances by members of the Phoenix Symphony, using Baroque bows, etc. Reviewer Richard Nilsen in “A welcome wave of ‘informed’ Baroque” liked the concert generally–

Under the direction of violinist Robert Mealy, the small group made a great case that Baroque music makes more sense played the way the Baroque musicians played it–bright, bouncy and rhythmically animated.

But did not like the horns–

There is no explaining the horns–the recent change of weather, or perhaps someone coming down with the flu, or maybe the just the fundamental intransigence of the instrument. But they cooked up quite a clam chowder. It’s a good thing they weren’t playing Til Eulenspiegel.

Ouch. As a horn player I just shake my head reading this. I have not spoken to the horn players involved and did not see the concert. The review is unclear if they used modern or historic horns. On any horn the Telemann and Handel works on the program will be tricky to perform, and much more so on historic horns.

The natural horn is more difficult in a number of ways than modern horn. As a rough estimate, everything is about twice as hard on natural horn than on valved horn. It takes weeks of fairly dedicated practice to get the articulations sounding right (many modern mouthpieces don’t work very well on natural horn), intonation takes special care, and basic accuracy is quite a bit more difficult in the upper range.

One theory is that back “in the day” the horns must have sounded a bit out of control, and audiences accepted that at the time as just how horns sounded. We have to assume the best artists of the time did pretty well, but even a big fan of the natural horn and horn history (like me) will have to admit that natural horn can be tough for a modern audience.

On any performance, of course, we must strive for perfection, but we also need to all do our part to inform our audiences about the horn and its historical practices.