Eastop - Hanover Band/Halstead: Mozart Horn works - wonderful !

[Nick Armstrong]

I am the proud owner of an advance copy of the forthcoming (January 2015) Hyperion release of Mozart's Horn Concertos and Quintet, played by Pip Eastop on natural horn with the Hanover Band conducted by ... Tony Halstead!

Can't stop listening to it !!





(Co-exec. produced by LaurieWatt of this parish - if you look at the small print carefully above!)

Jaw-dropping horn work technically, but never at the expense of fun and musicality. The cadenzas are particularly fantastic, virtuosic, chromatic... Everyone (even the Mozart-doubters) ought to hear the cadenza at the end of the first movement of No 4 (track 4 of the disc) - an absolute show-stopper!

Here’s the instrument:



And here’s a great action shot of soloist and conductor!



Samples already available here:

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/ym.asp?ym=2015_01&vw=dc

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA68097

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/mozart-horn-concertos/id929087641?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

I was going to add this to 'in the pipeline' or 'new releases' but thought it merited a thread to itself...

[pastoralguy]

This is on my wish list...

[MrGongGong]

Pip is the man, awesome technique and top bloke

[Gordon]

Sounds like a must have - if only to compare with Halstead's own recording on the natural horn [with the Hanover Band and Goodman] made for Nimbus [NI5104] in 1987 and re-issued by Conifer via Woolworths [CLASS 7062] many moons ago!! Now available via Naxos:

http://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/pre...=NI5104&path=1 or here for download:

http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=833648

Great pictures, I wonder if he was reading Autocar too - I wonder too what Dennis would make of it.

Halstead's recording was among the first of its kind - maybe the first - but there are quite a few now. Nimbus's sound is a bit over reverberant [IIRC they use soundfield microphones] but this new one is much better judging from the samples. Do we know where it was recorded? There was a time when the Hanovers had an old converted building in Brighton for recording - I doubt they do now.

[MrGongGong]

Great pictures, I wonder if he was reading Autocar too - I wonder what Dennis would make of it.

I know this will sound like heresy to some
but (IMV) Pip Eastop is a far more skilful and fluent player than Dennis Brain was
even though Dennis was a genius and a truly great musician

(and i'm not just bigging up my mates )

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I am the proud owner of an advance copy of the forthcoming (January 2015) Hyperion release of Mozart's Horn Concertos and Quintet, played by Pip Eastop on natural horn with the Hanover Band conducted by ... Tony Halstead!

Snap! Mine arrived at the office this morning, though I've yet to have a moment to give it a spin.

[Gordon]

I know this will sound like heresy to some
but (IMV) Pip Eastop is a far more skilful and fluent player than Dennis Brain was
even though Dennis was a genius and a truly great musician

(and i'm not just bigging up my mates :wink eye:)

Well, I'm not going to argue!! Dennis was unique in his time for sure and certainly lifted the art a notch or two. Apart from the differences in the times and tastes the technical skill levels these days are phenomenal compared to the 50s say. Remember all those anxious moments in concerts waiting for a split?

You should always stand up for your mates - always assuming they do the same for you!!

[MickyD]

Sounds like a must have - if only to compare with Halstead's own recording on the natural horn [with the Hanover Band and Goodman] made for Nimbus [NI5104] in 1987 and re-issued by Conifer via Woolworths [CLASS 7062] many moons ago!! Now available via Naxos:

http://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/pre...=NI5104&path=1 or here for download:

http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=833648

Great pictures, I wonder if he was reading Autocar too - I wonder too what Dennis would make of it.

Halstead's recording was among the first of its kind - maybe the first - but there are quite a few now. Nimbus's sound is a bit over reverberant [IIRC they use soundfield microphones] but this new one is much better judging from the samples. Do we know where it was recorded? There was a time when the Hanovers had an old converted building in Brighton for recording - I doubt they do now.

Let's not forget the excellent (and in my opinion, better) second version that Tony Halstead made with the AAM and Hogwood on L'Oiseau Lyre - it is still my preferred choice, but I'll be interested to hear this new one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One can only admire such music-making from the low-tech natural horn. We are so pampered nowadays. It's interesting that the simpler horns actually sound better too.

[Gordon]

I'd agree that the AAM from 1993 was a better recording - Abbey Road - I noted the Nimbus because I think it was a pioneer in the emerging HIP era. Both have that raw almost "rough" but perhaps authentic natural horn sound with its uneven stopped/open notes. On the evidence of a listen earlier to the samples of Eastop he seems more technically secure than Halstead but then we are talking of a time gap and a generation on in training etc. The natural horn is a treacherous beast after all.

I do wonder at the original Leutgeb intended player - was Mozart really having joke with his "mate" or were these pieces very hard to bring off back then and Leutgeb really was expert? Horn concerti were not commonplace but were not rare either - Haydn's 2 [possibly more lost] not to mention Vivaldi and Telemann - a very likeable one in D.

[MrGongGong]

I do wonder at the original Leutgeb intended player - was Mozart really having joke with his "mate" or were these pieces very hard to bring off back then and Leutgeb really was expert? Horn concerti were not commonplace but were not rare either - Haydn's 2 [possibly more lost] not to mention Vivaldi and Telemann - a very likeable one in D.

I always was told that they were mates and Mozart was playing jokes, some of the part was in coloured ink and wrote comments about how hard various bits were.

(But I might have imagined that?)

[Gordon]

Yes that's the usual story but I also seem to remember that Leutgeb was a cheese [or sausage] merchant so not necessarily a full time professional so what does that signify - if anything at all? His wiki pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Leutgeb

suggest that he travelled widely as a virtuoso so perhaps really was a player of some note. He apparently knew Haydn so his concerti were perhaps written with him in mind - some musicologists believe Hadn's No 1 was a present for the baptism ceremony of one of the children of Joseph Leutgeb. It would appear that Leutgeb was indeed the Dennis Brain/Pip Eastop/[insert favorite horn player] of his time.

[Nick Armstrong]

Do we know where it was recorded?

Concertos: All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London (15-18 October 2013)

Quintet: Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Loughton, Essex (18 February 2011)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for the "nudge", Cali - this will be my third Mozza Horn Concerto disc, and my first of the Quintet.

[Richard Barrett]

Very interesting, I'll be sure to give that a listen when it comes out.

By the way, if you want to hear some really virtuosic 18th century horn playing there's nothing I know that's more extreme than the horn parts in Haydn's baryton octets, which explore upper and lower regions of the instrument nobody else dared to go near (see the excellent recordings by Haydn-Sinfonietta Wien on BIS).