BaL 16.05.15 - Mozart: Horn Concertos

[MrGongGong]

Good to know that the panel has already sat to decide what we should think of this programme!

Panel?

[visualnickmos]

When Alan Civil was commissioned to write an appreciation of the late Dennis Brain by HMV, he turned it into
a biographical narration of the achievements of the great Alan Civil.

Aubrey Brain created a style of musicianship and sound quality for a whole generation of British horn players - including Alan Civil.

Civil was a fine horn player, a great musical arranger and a talented cartoonist but as a man, he was not a fit person to lick Aubrey's boots.

HS

Would I be correct in thinking that when AC stopped "hornisting" he went to run a village pub in Kent? Near Maidstone, I think?

[Barbirollians]

What a waste of time
It is absolutely clear which is the best version by miles (sorry Roger, i'll buy you a pint )

Its a shame Arkady Shilkloper hasn't recorded a version

and what on earth is a "hornist"?

As David sang with Pat

Exactly there really has been no need to have a BAL on this since 1954 . The best version by miles remains the Dennis Brain - for all the amusing farts of the Pip Eastop .

[MrGongGong]

Exactly there really has been no need to have a BAL on this since 1954 . The best version by miles remains the Dennis Brain - for all the amusing farts of the Pip Eastop .

Take your fingers out of your ears
and wash your mouth out

I re-listened to the Brain recording after we discussed this before
and i'm afraid that, great though it is, it's clumsy in comparison

You need to embrace your inner fart if you want to play a brass instrument

The version we haven't had yet is Oren Marshall on Tuba
he would give Pip a run for the money

[Hornspieler]

Take your fingers out of your ears
and wash your mouth out

I re-listened to the Brain recording after we discussed this before
and i'm afraid that, great though it is, it's clumsy in comparison

You need to embrace your inner fart if you want to play a brass instrument

The version we haven't had yet is Oren Marshall on Tuba
he would give Pip a run for the money

Unneccesarily abusive and (for one who once essayed to be a horn player) totally ill-informed.

Yet another clanger from Mr GongGong.

HS

[StephenO]

Take your fingers out of your ears
and wash your mouth out

I re-listened to the Brain recording after we discussed this before
and i'm afraid that, great though it is, it's clumsy in comparison

You need to embrace your inner fart if you want to play a brass instrument

The version we haven't had yet is Oren Marshall on Tuba
he would give Pip a run for the money

Shouldn't that be Oren Marshall the tubist?

I'm with Barbirollians. My vote (sorry - still in election mode) is for Dennis Brain.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Would Barbi's use of "amusing farts" count as "necessarily abusive", I wonder?

[MrGongGong]

Unneccesarily abusive and (for one who once essayed to be a horn player) totally ill-informed.

Yet another clanger from Mr GongGong.

HS

I wasn't being 100% serious you know

The Brain recording is wonderful (as I said before) but no where near as fluent as the new one IMV

(I think the ghost of Civil is after you )

[Barbirollians]

Not at a fhgl . The said noises are of a piece of his interpretation of the Leutgeb and Mozart relationship - I tend to think that was banter and not Mozart 's estimation of his musicianship

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh dear! Has there been a silent invasion of our orchestras by the Americans?

Violinists, Cellists, Flautists, Oboists, Clarinettists, Bassoonists, Trombonists, Harpists, Percussionists and Timpanists - and now Hornists!Thank goodness that we still have Trumpet Players - recruited from those wonderful brass bands which abound throughout the British Isles.

The Americans misspell this one.

[Roehre]

Not at a fhgl . The said noises are of a piece of his interpretation of the Leutgeb and Mozart relationship - I tend to think that was banter and not Mozart 's estimation of his musicianship

Mozart and Leutgeb went on very well, personally and musically. Writing the score in different colours of ink and adding some scatological remarks fit perfectly within this relationship. The said noises also fit well with mozartian canons like KV231 and 233. Just a bit of fun, especially for Mozart

[Hornspieler]

A comparison too far.

Shawm / Oboe
Racket / Bassoon
Sackbutt / Slide Trombone
Valveless Horn / 4 or 5 valve Rotary Horn
Fortepiano / Steinway concert grand

How can you draw a comparison between these alternatives when assessing a performance on the instrument for which it was written with the development of that instrument in over 200 years?

Yes, you can say which one you prefer to listen to, but that does not mean that it is the best - technically, musically or (controversally) which instrument the composer would have opted to write for if given the choice.

It seems to me that the word "best" is grossly overused in this forum.

Pip Eastop has made a magnificent recording (as has Tony Halstead and others) of the solo works as their authors would have heard them and (BTW) for me, Pip's recording of the Horn Quintet, which is far more difficult than the concerti, is even more impressive; as is Halstead's recording of the Weber Concertino, which Dennis never attempted to play

HS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not at a fhgl . The said noises are of a piece of his interpretation of the Leutgeb and Mozart relationship - I tend to think that was banter and not Mozart 's estimation of his musicianship

I enjoy all eight of the recordings I have (and my memories of the old CfP one). If a hypothetical gun were pointed at my head, I'd not hesitate to choose the Pip Eastop recording - it provides the sort of sounds that I'd always imagined from a valveless horn, but which other HIPP recordings I've heard tend to avoid, BUT "provides" them with a depth of Musical wit, humour and pathos well beyond what I'd imagined (Tony and the Band deserve equal credit in this respect).

As the hypothetical gun has been loaded with blanks, I shall continue to enjoy Brain and Karajan and all the others (including, of course, Tony's own NIMBUS recording) with very great pleasure.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It seems to me that the word "best" is grossly overused in this forum.

Pip Eastop has made a magnificent recording (as has Tony Halstead and others) of the solo works as their authors would have heard them and (BTW) for me, Pip's recording of the Horn Quintet, which is far more difficult than the concerti, is even more impressive

- although I'd heard the Horn Quintet before (and once had a LP with members of the Academy of St Martins-in-the-Fields) I had failed to make the "connection" with this lovely work that the Eastop/Eroica Quartet instantly and permanently created for me.

[Tony Halstead]

A comparison too far.

Shawm / Oboe
Racket / Bassoon
Sackbutt / Slide Trombone
Valveless Horn / 4 or 5 valve Rotary Horn
Fortepiano / Steinway concert grand

How can you draw a comparison between these alternatives when assessing a performance on the instrument for which it was written with the development of that instrument in over 200 years?

Yes, you can say which one you prefer to listen to, but that does not mean that it is the best - technically, musically or (controversally) which instrument the composer would have opted to write for if given the choice.

It seems to me that the word "best" is grossly overused in this forum.

Pip Eastop has made a magnificent recording (as has Tony Halstead and others) of the solo works as their authors would have heard them and (BTW) for me, Pip's recording of the Horn Quintet, which is far more difficult than the concerti, is even more impressive; as is Halstead's recording of the Weber Concertino, which Dennis never attempted to play

HS

It seems to me that the word "best" is grossly overused in this forum.

Yes I do agree with this, Hornspieler. I also think that the 'best' thing that Dr Freeman-Attwood could do would be to come up with TWO recommendations:
1) His preferred 'modern'/ valved horn recording and
2) His preferred 'old instrument'/valveless horn recording.
Hopefully he will not, in his played extracts, mix the modern instrument versions with the period instrument ones, so as to avoid the 'pitch-lurching' that I mentioned in an earlier posting.