Natural Horn Recordings, Methods, More
Although there have not been many comments yet on the “new” blog (it was impossible to leave comments on the original HTML blog), I have enjoyed reading the comments that have been made. A couple of them thus far have been related to the natural horn.
In a post on My favorite horn recording I mentioned a natural horn recording by Hermann Baumann. As I mentioned then, this recording was very influential on me as a student. I was already interested in history but the whole concept of historic performance practices and trying to discover what the horn would have sounded like long in the past really fascinated me. And the playing on the recording is great; very musical and interesting. The question in the post is where to find this recording? It is long out of print on the Telefunken label. If anyone knows this to be out on CD please add a comment. I wish that it were available.
In a later post titled Historically “uniformed” reviewer? the question was posed as to what is a good natural horn method for a modern player to use. I suggest the best historic method for actual use by a modern horn player is the Duvernoy. This is available with an English translation from Thompson Edition. It is one of the more basic and concise of the nineteenth century natural horn methods and is what I used when I was learning natural horn at IU, a time I remember fondly, in particular the performances of the Gallay Grand Quartet on natural horns with the aptly named Grand Quartet (coached by Rick Seraphinoff) and performances in the IU Baroque orchestra.
Another related question I get asked from time is about how I incorporate the natural horn in my teaching now. You would think I might do a lot. Go back to around five years ago and I was quite actively presenting on topics related to the horn in the nineteenth century and performing on period instruments whenever I had the chance. I considered making a period instrument solo recording in fact and someday still might; I even played an entire Halloween concert with The Nashville Symphony on natural horn. I enjoy the natural horn, but in my teaching I tend to not push it that much. It is fun to work on the natural horn with an interested student; there is also much to be said for “overtraining,” and working out things on the natural horn pushes your technique. All students graduate ASU with some basic understanding of the instrument, and it is not discouraged (!), but, in reality, I have come to feel that knowledge of descant and triple horns is a bit more important for students looking to win a performance job.
ASU owns one natural horn, a McCracken, and several other interesting horns.
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