- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
While excerpt books are really useful for initial study, if you are serious about learning orchestral works you must have copies of the original orchestral parts. The excerpts presented in the hornexcerpts.org site, derived from actual orchestral parts, are also very useful, but are now no longer offered in printable versions, as many horn students and horn teachers must be noting — they presently print out not nearly so well as in the past, with the IHS instead pushing sales of the printed/bound version of this resource.
The Horn Matters PDF Excerpt E-Book presents something new, the best of both worlds! A concise (17 page) excerpt book based on actual orchestral parts in a PDF E-Book format. It is easily printed and may be viewed on any electronic device (computer, iPad, etc.) — and is offered to the horn world for free.
Inside you will find the most commonly requested excerpts from fifteen of the most commonly requested works in professional and university auditions:
Beethoven – Symphony No.3
Beethoven – Symphony No. 6
Beethoven – Symphony No. 7
Beethoven – Symphony No. 9
Brahms – Symphony No. 1
Brahms – Symphony No. 2
Brahms – Symphony No. 3
Mahler – Symphony No. 5
Mendelssohn – Nocturne from “Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Strauss – Don Juan
Strauss – Don Quixote
Strauss – Ein Heldenleben
Strauss – Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5
Wagner – Siegfried’s Rhine Journey
However, due to copyright restrictions, it was not possible to include two works that are requested frequently in this free collection: Ravel – Pavan for a Dead Princess and Shostakovich – Symphony No.5. As the latter is an extremely important excerpt for auditions, information on legally obtaining excerpts from Shostakovich 5 may be found in this article.
The new Horn Matters PDF Excerpt E-Book may be downloaded directly here:
The content of this PDF excerpt book was driven primarily by surveys I did of audition lists for high level undergrad and grad programs for horn, the length overall being intentionally limited to a good one for reading as a PDF on a iPad.
I have in mind to do a volume II (UPDATE: more info here!), and already have a list of 13 works for sure for that, the additional works chosen based on a survey of ICSOM orchestra audition lists that I did a few years ago (for the complete results see John Ericson, “A New ICSOM Audition List Survey,” The Horn Call 33, no. 1 [October, 2002], 53-55). The combination of the excerpts in volume I and II would be what I would hope an undergrad performance major knows well by the time they graduate.
Very likely there will also be a volume III as well (UPDATE: more info here!), aimed at the additional excerpts from the public domain that horn students should study — I have an outline for that ready too. And check the Horn Matters PDF download page for even more useful and practical PDF horn resources:
Information on Volume III here
