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A Glimpse into the Horn I Book of the Duo Operas ‘Cav and Pag’

PUBLISHED: September 28, 2011, Bruce Hembd
Enrico_Caruso_As_Canio

For the first production of the 2011-2012 Arizona Opera season, I am bumping up from third to principal horn on a pairing of two operas:  Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. This is a traditional pairing that gives a principal horn lots to do and today I will feature a few interesting passages and highlights. [...]

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Excerpts, Opera

Random Monday: The Sword, The Womb and The Fines

PUBLISHED: May 23, 2011, Bruce Hembd

Tag, you’re it! A new tag has been added for “Contributing author.” In case you missed it, contributing authors Dave Weiner (brass technician) and Tom Varner (jazz/solo artist) have written some great articles to look at. The comfort of the womb? Canadian researchers have reported that floating in an isolation tank increased the technical …

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Opera, Wagner, Wagner tuba

Siegfried Horn Calls from Götterdämmerung

PUBLISHED: March 18, 2011, Bruce Hembd

To wrap up my series on the Siegfried horn calls within Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, today’s article features the calls in Wagner’s final opera in the cycle, Götterdämmerung.  The short call of course is something that most horn players are familiar with. The Prelude and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey is a fairly common staple [...]

Anatomy of a Music Stand (Spring 2011)

PUBLISHED: March 2, 2011, Bruce Hembd

In the same vein as previous articles where I posted pictures of my workstation and mouthpiece pouch contents, today’s article highlights some of the music that I am currently working on -  for both fun and profit. I manage to get in 2-3 hours of practice each day and I do it mainly for personal [...]

Horn in A in Italian ‘Bel Canto’ Opera: Rossini’s Semiramide

PUBLISHED: January 12, 2011, Bruce Hembd

In “Sometimes Up is Down” I spelled out some pitfalls in performing Italian operatic repertoire. For Horn in A: The basic “A-horn” rule-of-thumb for the 3rd hornist is this: If your “up” transposition puts your sounding pitches above the 1st horn, you most likely need to invert the interval transposition to sound below the 1st [...]

Tips on Surviving Very Long Concerts

PUBLISHED: December 1, 2010, Bruce Hembd

Odds are that if you were to play one opera in your life, it would most likely be Carmen. When recently playing principal in Arizona Opera’s Carmen production, I was reminded of how many times I have played this opera and the unique challenges it has for horn players. For a newcomer playing opera, the [...]

Voting YES for Work Stoppage

PUBLISHED: September 27, 2010, Bruce Hembd

I have been relatively quiet here on Horn Matters for a few weeks. The reasons being that I have been intensely focused on all things AZOOMA – tweaking the web site and keeping tabs on our readership and social media. AZOOMA – the Arizona Opera Orchestra Musicians Association – is the opera orchestra that I [...]

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Opera
John Ericson & Bruce Hembd
on the French horn, brass related topics, and the field of classical music.