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O.T. - Thrilled to discover this amazing horn driver

Today I discovered an amazing horn driver. A pair of horn drivers, actually. They're called "lips," and they belong to Teunis van der Zwart. With a name like that, you had better be very good at something, and he is very good indeed at playing the "natural horn," an instrument that I was familiar with but had never paid much attention to before. Well, that instrument sure got my complete and undivided attention today.

I'm a member of the "friends of the orchestra" for a Tokyo-based period instrument orchestra called Orchestra Libera Classica, headed by the great cellist Hidemi Suzuki. This orchestra specializes in works of the early classical period, especially those of Haydn. Today I had the pleasure of attending the closing concert of their fifth season, and today's performance spotlighted the natural horn, which is a horn that does not have any valves whatsoever. The player does it all with just his mouth and his hand in the bell of the horn to control the sound.

Today's program was Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor "La passione," followed by Haydn's Horn Concerto in D major, VIId:3, and concluded with Mozart's Serenade in D major K.320 "Posthorn."

All three of these works were heavy on horn parts, but the Horn Concerto really blew me away. The natural horn has been a permanent fixture in this orchestra for the past five years, but the players always sit in the very back and while they often play difficult passages, they have never been given any virtuoso solo work. Frankly, I never even thought of the natural horn as a wonderful solo instrument until today, but somehow Teunis van der Zwart managed to coax sounds out of that thing like you wouldn't believe. Imagine a great vocalist singing a long, challenging aria by J.S. Bach or G.F. Handel, and then imagine that all being sung not by a human voice but rather by a horn. That horn was singing! And what a range! He covered more than five octaves with that thing -- a horn not much different from the one pictured here. Some passages were long, drawn out and slow, played with the tenderness of a mother caressing her sleeping infant's cheek, and other passages were played with tremendous power, and there were difficult trills and fine modulations of tone, as well as great leaps from one extreme of the instrument's tonal range to the other.

What an eye-opening discovery this was for me! The whole listening audience seemed just as stunned as I was. I never imagined that I could be moved to tears by a horn, of all instruments.

After the concert I asked Teunis and the other horn players what the maximum tonal span of the natural horn was, and they confirmed that it can be close to six octaves. It doesn't seem like you should be able to get such a wide range out of it, but apparently horn players have their tricks of the trade. I now have a great deal more respect for these guys. Even playing a valved horn instrument at a high level of virtuosity is something special, but to meet the most extreme demands of a composer on an instrument without valves -- I just would never have thought such a performance possible if I hadn't been there to hear it.

The closing piece by Mozart was, in its own way, no less amazing than the Haydn horn concerto. In this piece, every non-string instrument in the orchestra had, in turn, a segment where it was in the limelight and asked to perform some hot tricks. (The strings, of course, were all going full tilt the whole time.) This means we got to hear some really demanding playing from the natural horns, the flutes, the oboes, the bassoons, the trombones, the timpani, and -- the posthorn. The posthorn? What in blazes is a posthorn? Well, it's the horn blown by an 18th century postal worker making his rounds delivering mail. And the thing is bloody loud -- too loud to play with the orchestra inside the hall. So they had it playing *outside* the hall, where the volume was just right. (Today was one of the few times I can recall classical symphony orchestra musicians entering and exiting the hall during the middle of the performance. The last time it happened was also in a piece performed by this orchestra. I think it was a work by Haydn, although it may have been Mozart. In that work, the musicians left the stage one by one until just a single violinist remained.) There are not many recordings of this Mozart serenade, which amazes me because it is such a thoroughly delightful work. It occurs to me that to perform it well could be a bit of a challenge for an orchestra, because it requires really outstanding musicians in every section.

Today's concert was (like always) recorded live and the CD will be released in four months, going on sale at the next concert. If anyone wants a heads-up when this disc becomes available, email me -- cdwitmer [at] spamcop [dot] net -- and I'll let you know in four months' time when it becomes available.

Now all I need is a loudspeaker with a six-octave horn to play this CD when it comes out . . .

I'm familiar with all the CDs shown at the link below, which is just a small part of their total output, most of which is not yet available outside Japan. All are very good, and some are "as good as it gets" if this type of music interests you.

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Topic - O.T. - Thrilled to discover this amazing horn driver - Christopher Witmer 05:16:13 02/24/07 (4)
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