Lesser-known Othmar Schoeck and Hans Georg Pflüger, both active in the 20th century, make up the last CD of this set, demonstrating why the renewed attention they currently command is very deserving. Richard Strauss did not shy away from challenging repertoire both of his horn concertos ask much of their soloist. He was followed by Schumann, who composed his technically demanding Konzertstück a few months after the Adagio and Allegro Op.70. In the Romantic period, Carl Maria von Weber was the first to imbue the horn concerto with the spirit of the period, in his Concertino in E minor. Michael Haydn's Horn Concerto has received more attention recently, and is certainly no pale imitation of that of his older brother, beginning as it does with an unusual slow movement. Mozart's contemporary Haydn also finds a place, with his Concerto No.1 featured alongside a spurious Concerto No.2 generally attributed to the composer. He inspired none other than Mozart (found on CD6), possibly the most famous composer of horn concertos, whose highly idiomatic writing for the instrument has never been surpassed. His Caprice in F for two horns includes some playful writing between the two solo instruments.Īnother Bohemian composer, Franz Anton Rösler – who would later Italianise his name to Francesco Antonio Rosetti – composed several horn concertos, and CD9 is given over entirely to these. Jan Dismas Zelenka, a Bohemian composer active in the same period, would later be championed by Smetana. Their German contemporaries include Johann Friedrich Fasch, Johann David Heinichen and Johann Joachim Quantz, all of whom wrote a great quantity of horn music. Other lesser-known composers are also represented: the horn player Peter Damm has discovered and now champions neglected pieces for the horn repertoire, including concertos by Peter Johann Fick and Christoph Förster, who were both active in the first half of the 18th century.
His Italian contemporary Vivaldi wrote two concertos for two horns, the second of which features here. Telemann wrote several concertos and overtures that feature the horn. The Baroque period saw a flurry of composers adding horn concertos to their repertoire, often in a group with other instruments. However, it did not appear as a solo concerto instrument until years later one of the first examples is an anonymous Sonata da caccia, included on this release, with the horn playing hunt-like motives in a concertante relationship alongside strings and continuo. Its first recorded usage comes around the end of the 16th century, when Cavalli's opera Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo calls for a 'chiamata alla caccia'. Since then, the instrument has undergone vast transformation, the most important being the addition of valves, allowing players access to all notes rather than just the natural ones. Even before it was first used in classical music, the horn was frequently found in religious ceremonies as a useful way of calling people to prayer, and of course played a vital role on the hunting field. But of them all, the fifth has to be considered the greatest: sarcastic and funereal, inflammatory yet somehow managing to toe the party line – the final movement can be seen as both a parody of Stalinist excess, and an example of it – this was the symphony that made the young Shostakovich a name, for better or worse.An instrument in evolution, today's French horn bears little resemblance to the horns of the past.
Shostakovich wrote 15 symphonies in total, and he’s unique in that almost all of them made an actual cultural impact. The text, taken from a message scrawled on the wall of a Gestapo cell in World War II, dovetails so perfectly with Gorecki’s bare-bones accompaniment that it’s impossible to imagine a future without it.
The concept is innovative and watertight – a soprano sings three texts inspired by themes of parents and missing children over a sparse and simple orchestral backing – but it’s the second movement that’s proved the real winner. 3 (‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’)Ī recording phenomenon in the 1990s, Gorecki’s third is not only popular now: it’s destined to be a future classic. 4 / Johannes Brahms / Klaus Mäkelä / Oslo Philharmonic
0 kommentar(er)
