I fully sympathize with John's point of view. Whenever I listen to the Gardiner recording of Brahms' German Requiem, I get goose-bumps from the horn sound. But I am affected in a different but equal manner when listening to a section of well-played 8D's. I also enjoy what one might call "cross-over" playing, for example the London Philharmonic's soundtrack recording for Lord of the Rings, which in the horn-work sounds much more like Hollywood 8D's than Paxmans. Goes to show that it's more the musician than the equipment. (Although in this last case maybe recording techniques play a significant part, as well.)
Fred -----Original Message----- From: John Mason [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 8:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Hornlist] Musically telling sound, was re: Conversion of a High F Horn to Eb Bob Osmun wrote, wisely: >The goal of horn playing is to produce what Farky >Cousins calls a "musically telling" sound, not to >recreate some specific historical ideal. This makes excellent sense. For about 90 seconds every January 1st (that is, when I hear the horn solo in the introduction to Blue Danube, during the VPO's New Year's concert), I think that Pizka is right: We should all dump our Krupes and Geyers, Alexes and Bergs, Lawsons and Schmids, Yamabamers and Holtons, and even our pre-letter 8Ds with Lawson leadpipes and Patterson valves. We should play only Vienna horns and only with the F crook. No doubt about it, the Vienna sound is simply gorgeous. But then I glance over to my CD collection and think about the hornists whose sound and whose musicianship thrill me. There are many musically telling ways to play the horn. Alan Civil, Peter Damm, and Julius Watkins didn't produce the historically authentic Vienna single F horn sound. Would we have wanted to tell them that they should? How about Aubrey Brain? Would we have said to him that he played the wrong sort of single F horn and produced an inauthentic sound? How about Dale Clevenger, David Jolley, Vincent Chancey, or Radovan Vlatkovic? Anything wrong with the way they play? I didn't think so. I admire the sound that the VPO hornists produce. But as a great man once said, may one hundred flowers bloom, may one hundred schools of hornplaying contend. --John ===== J. Mason, Charlottesville, Virginia New Pics, Greg Howard Band at Starr Hill Music Hall: http://www.greghoward.com/sights/stills/starrhill/ __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Horn mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/listinfo/horn _______________________________________________ Horn mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/listinfo/horn
