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This week a focus for me has been preparing the first of the three sessions I will present at the upcoming International Horn Symposium, “Schubert’s ‘Auf Dem Strom’ and Horn Technique in the 1820s.” A half hour session on Tuesday, for a preview, of sorts, two articles on Horn Articles Online have some of the content that will be discussed –
(and this Horn Matters article too) but actually this session has another goal, and that is to quickly look at the big picture of recent brass scholarship in relation to these important works.
The general topic is one I have puzzled over for years. It is sad to state but “Real Scholars” seem skeptical of
- The Horn Call
- Anything that is put online
- Scholarship done by performers who are college professors
Several recent resources on the topic of Auf dem Strom will be examined critically. Adding to the overall problem, many horn professors in particular seem to be stuck in sort of a 1970s understanding of horn history and don’t have a lot of interest to know more. If the scholarship is more recent than Morley-Pegge, they really don’t know it, and what they might have known at some point in the past they have at least partially forgot.
This is to say that I hope to open a few eyes at the session on topics such as:
- If a story is repeated a lot it does not mean it is fact
- Be a critical thinker
- Don’t fall for lazy brass scholarship based on old sources
And it will touch on topics also covered in these articles:
- Brahms and the Orchestral Horn
- The Baroque Origins of Hand Horn Technique, and the Early Classical Horn
It will be fast moving (only 30 minutes long) and not a dull, scholarly view of the topic. I hope to see a few of you there!
