IHS Brisbane 2010, Part III: Tuckwell’s Favorite Recording and More

Tuesday morning I had to hear the 9:00 recital. Why? Because I was on the 11:30 recital in the same venue and I wanted to hear a few more players in the hall first! Part of being a smart artist is to hear other artists and if you can check out how they sounded in the hall because there are a lot of ways you could set up and in my case I had no rehearsal time in the recital hall.

The first artist on the schedule, Ysolt Clark, had to pull out of the concert due to a sick baby so the order was switched around to start with Bill Scharnberg from the University of North Texas. He certainly threw it down, showing that he could play chords well in Happy Blues by Zsolt Nagy and that he had tons of range and technique in Stephen Frank, Variations on Barnacle Bill the Sailor. This work was actually his arrangement of a bass trombone work (the exact words he used were “stolen and transposed”) and it was a crowd pleaser. Next up was Alan Mattingly and Nicholas Kenney from Nebraska with Majaliwa by Paul Basler for two horns and piano. This was also a hit with the audience, a very attractive work and well played. To close it out we had John Cox from Oregon who also sounded relaxed and threw down some great playing. His main work was the Sonate by Siegfried Köhler (1927-1984). This was a work I was unfamiliar with and it was effective, it is one to look into more.

After that, while I did have my ears checked for a hearing project being done at the workshop, I missed several potentially interesting sessions so that I could warm up and be ready for my performance of the Neuling Bagatelle on the 11:30 recital. This was a shared recital with several players. It started out with Susan McCullough from Denver and our current workshop host Peter Luft performing the Kuhlau Concertino for two horns op 45. The part I heard the best was the end where they surprised the audience and played the ending offstage. As I was offstage I had the best seat in the house for that. Next was Larry Lowe, horn professor at Brigham Young University. He is also a composer and the performance of his Sonata No. 2 for horn, soprano, and piano I believe was great, although I could hear very little of it through the door. This work was 2nd prize winner in the 2009 IHS Composition Competition and is one that while difficult really needs to be heard more. After that we had the Beethoven Sextett performed by Jeff Snedeker and Jonathan Stoneman on natural horns. I heard little of this again.

Then it was my turn onstage for something completely different. I was interested to play the Neuling for several reasons. One is that I only learned it a couple years ago and it is still pretty fresh for me but the bigger reason is it is a piece that everyone has heard of, it is a standard on European low horn auditions, but it is a work that almost nobody performs in public. It shows off pretty conclusively if you have or don’t have a good low range and if you can make a work that is not especially great sound interesting and melodic. I believe I came off in the category of players that are able to do that and it was exciting to be called back by the audience for a second bow.

As to the end of the program I will mention that Valentin Eschmann sounded quite strong on the solo horn arrangement of the Bach Toccata & Fugue in D Minor through the door. We will hear more from him later in the week.

Shifting Gears after Lunch

With that I can now start enjoying the event more as my main meetings, sessions, and performance events are behind me. In celebration my first session attended was Randy Faust on “Howe to Play Horn.” Marvin Howe is a person I never met but has long interested me as to this day I think nobody has written a better beginner method for horn. Much was covered but one focus was the “3 R’s” of Howe in relation to building the most beautiful tone, respiration, response, and resonance. Another interesting point, to me, was that the embouchure setup advocated by Howe was quite a bit different than that of Farkas, being considerably more downstream in function and much more like that described by Gunther Schuller. This will be a topic in the Hornmasters series in Horn Matters at some point soon.

I had been itching to try some horns and at this point started in on it. There are not as many horns here as at some events. I liked a couple horns I tried very well on first impression, an Alexander compensating triple and also a Finke triple, will try more another day.

After that I went to hear Rose French present a session on chamber music for horn, cello, and piano. Rose is IHS Exhibits Coordinator but also is an active player and teacher back in Phoenix and was my first student to complete their DMA at Arizona State. Her session related to transcriptions done as a part of her DMA project and at the end it was great to be able to congratulate her yet again.

The final afternoon session was Jonathan Stoneman interviewing Barry Tuckwell on the topic of “Essential Recordings.” This was a well attended session and I have enough notes about it to almost write a full post on it. Perhaps sometime in the future I will follow up more. The scenario was that Tuckwell was selecting eight recordings he would like to have with him if he were stranded on a desert island. His very interesting number one choice was Tommy Dorsey from 1935, for the beautiful natural lyric quality of his playing. Also in the Q and A I was very interested that Tuckwell agrees with the theory that Mozart 1 was not by Mozart but rather a re-writing by Mozart of a work of Leutgeb. I have more on this in this prior post and the case is pretty compelling. And finally I should mention that the album he said that he was most proud of and remembered the most fondly was his recording of Jerome Kern. This is currently available under the title A Sure Thing, and I am certainly interested to hear it now, I don’t own it.

Evening Recital

The evening concert featured Hector McDonald and Kostas Siskos. McDonald was mentioned yesterday and he opened the concert with the Brahms trio performed on Vienna horn. In this context the Vienna horn has much of the character of the natural horn and it was great to hear it live in this manner at the workshop, I would guess it to be a first for an International Horn Symposium.

One quick aside would be that about ten years ago I wanted to play the Brahms trio on natural horn and worked and worked on it for a few months. I then took it to the first rehearsal and that was it! I instead performed it on my standard double horn, and can say conclusively that it is probably twice as hard on natural horn and Vienna horn has to be harder than double horn in the say way by some similar factor. So for me this performance had a lot of wow factor but I don’t know if it hit the audience the same way or was lost on them a bit. Also, the setup unfortunately left the horn sounding a bit distant and under the volume of the violin by a degree.

Speaking of setups, virtually every player I have seen in this hall has tried a different setup and I think the hall has been a challenge for the soloists. I have seen setups ranging from lid completely closed to up full on the piano and the horn in every position left to right across the stage that you can imagine including the visually jarring facing away from the pianist. The problem being this venue is actually an opera theater and it is set for a show now with the pit open. There is a scrim down to define the back of the stage but behind that I am told is scenery for a show. What this has done I think is make the acoustic quirky on and off the stage.

Kostas Siskos is solo hornist of the Athens State Orchestra and is the first Greek horn player that has ever been featured at an International Horn Symposium. He stood well over to the side away from the pianist and came across on the Villanelle as a strong player but I wonder if he was overplaying in reaction to the hall, it was among the more aggressive interpretations of this work that I have ever heard.

After short selections by both artists (McDonald on the Gliere Nocturne and Siskos on two Greek song arrangements) the closer was McDonald and Siskos together playing the third double concerto by Friedrich Witt (1770-1837). The first part is a screamer and on this Siskos played first horn and I believe (it was a bit hard to see from my seat) that he played it on a single F descant. I don’t know if this is a first but these are not often seen (ASU owns one) and it gave each player of the duo a very distinctly different sound. Bravo to both artists!

I was glad the concert came in at a bit under two hours as well, as I was by that time running on fumes and every day so far feels like it has contained about two days of activities. I think participants should feel that they got their money’s worth.

No photo today, but if you want to see some be sure to check Facebook for the International Horn Society Fan Page, new photos are appearing there every day.

Wednesday looks to be another very busy day, more tomorrow.

Continue to Part IV