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SubCategory Archive (tags): ‘Orchestra’

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Muted or Open (or Stopped?) in Symphonie Fantastique?

PUBLISHED: September 11, 2009, John Ericson

Following up on the topic of stopped horn in Brahms, there is a related issue in the famous “March to the Scaffold” movement of the Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz. In some editions the part is marked Con Sordino. In some recordings it is played muted, in others it is open. What did Berlioz want? [...]

From the Mailbag: Is Using the Assistant Horn Cheating?

PUBLISHED: September 8, 2009, John Ericson

I had a question come in recently on the use of the assistant first horn. I actually wrote a full article on this topic that was published a few years ago in The Horn Call, and it was for a time in my horn articles site. I pulled it offline after the publication of my [...]

Conductors Say the Darndest Things II

PUBLISHED: September 7, 2009, John Ericson

The great American horn teacher Philip Farkas had a story about water in the horn that he loved to tell. Nancy Fako relates the story as told by Farkas in the questions and answers part of a recorded 1979 panel discussion in her book Philip Farkas & His Horn. I remember one time we played a [...]

Categories: Sub-categories:
Orchestra, Philip Farkas

Please Don’t Poo Poo the Pops

PUBLISHED: September 3, 2009, Bruce Hembd
sad-clown

Playing pops for fun and profit. Some orchestral musicians dislike playing Pops concerts… …really dislike Pops. These types of orchestra musicians are prone to complain about anything and to be frank, are best to be avoided. It is usually a grumpy minority of highbrow whiners that view playing popular music as a chore — something [...]

Categories: Sub-categories:
Orchestra

Online Horn Section Listings FAQ

PUBLISHED: September 2, 2009, John Ericson

I am so glad to find your site! So much information! But where are the horn section listings I heard about? Horn section listings? Yes, I was just reading A Devil to Play and it says they are in some website in Arizona. Are you those guys? You are in Arizona after all. Oh yes, [...]

Nocturne from Midsummer Night’s Dream

PUBLISHED: August 18, 2009, Bruce Hembd

Thoughts on a orchestral solo. The Nocturne from Felix Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music to Midsummer Night’s Dream is a standard excerpt that is commonly asked at most principal horn orchestral auditions. The extended opening horn solo is a good opportunity for a player to demonstrate a variety of talents, including dynamic and breath control and moreover, [...]

Berv on Endurance, and the Berv Brothers play Wagner

PUBLISHED: July 7, 2009, John Ericson

Following up on yesterday, I really do find the “response” of Harry Berv to The Art of French Horn Playing interesting. I would propose that most books written about the horn after 1956 are in one way or another a response to Farkas. Berv in his A Creative Approach to the French Horn feels that [...]

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