Horn Sonata, Op 17 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
1. Allegro moderato; 2. Poco adagio, quasi andante – 3. Rondo. Allegro.
Beethoven wrote his Horn Sonata for the Czech virtuoso Johann Wenzel Stich (who adopted the name Giovanni Punto when he began touring in western Europe) for the two of them to play at a concert in Vienna on 18 April 1800. Beethoven had been involved in preparations for his benefit concert on 2 April, including finishing his First Symphony for the occasion, so he would not have had the chance to start work on the Horn Sonata until just before the performance. His piano pupil, Ferdinand Ries said that, in fact, it was only written the day before. He was probably exaggerating, but the work certainly appears to be one of Beethoven’s last-minute rush jobs.
It was an immediate success, and was repeated in Budapest few weeks later, but a quarrel between Beethoven and Punto put paid to a third, private, performance for a music-loving family. Because sufficiently-skilled horn players were rare at the time, the sonata was published with an alternative cello part.
The first movement exploits both the horn’s singing qualities and its agility, with wide leaps, Beethoven making particularly effective use of its very lowest register.
The second movement, with its solemn march-rhythms, is very short, scarcely more than a slow introduction to the rondo finale, which calls for some virtuoso articulation from the horn-player, especially in the allegro molto final bars.
Notturno, Op 7 Franz Strauss (1822-1905)
Franz Strauss is probably best remembered today as the father of composer Richard Strauss. One of the leading horn-players of his time, he was principal horn with the Munich Court Opera orchestra from 1847 to 1889, and until 1896 he taught at the Munich Academy. He played in several Wagner premières, in spite of his dislike of both the man and his music, and advised him on Siegfried’s horn‐call. The conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow called him the “Joachim of the horn” - a reference to the great violinist Joseph Joachim. He was also active as a conductor.
As a composer, Strauss naturally wrote a number of works for his own instrument, including a concerto, and Theme and Variations for horn and piano. The occasionally rather Schumannesque Notturno is mostly gentle and song-like, apart from the strenuously energetic passage that flares up briefly in the middle.
‘Appel Interstellaire’ from Des canyons aux étoiles... Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
‘Appel Interstellaire’ (Inter-stellar Call), for solo horn, is the sixth movement of Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles... (From the Canyons to the Stars...). This huge twelve-movement orchestral work was composed between 1971 and 1974, in response to a commission from the American patroness Alice Tully of New York. Searching for an appropriate starting-point Messiaen eventually settled on the Grand Canyon as the USA’s most spectacular natural phenomenon. He visited Bryce Canyon, Utah, in May 1972, and later recalled: “...when one is in the canyon, it’s extraordinary, it’s divine! Its totally deserted and wild...it was marvellous, grandiose; we were immersed in total silence – not the slightest noise, except for the birdsong. And we saw those formidable rocks tinted with all possible shades of red, orange and violet, those amazing formations created by erosion: the shapes of castles, towers, bridges, windows, columns!”
‘Appel interstellaire’ was originally written in 1970 as a memorial to a former pupil. At a later performance Messiaen found the player taking an over-literal approach to the music’s technical demands, and said: “No, no, this isn’t it. Try to interpret it like the wind.”
Three Pieces from Songs of Our Days, Op. 76 Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953)
transcribed for horn and piano by Christopher Palmer
1. Cavalry Song; 2. A Greeting; 3. Golden Ukraine.
Songs of our Days is a nine-movement cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra dating from 1937. Prokofiev told a friend that he had written it “in order to soften hard hearts” after the official rejection of his Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution. The texts consist mostly of folk-song imitations, and in a deliberate attempt to curry favour with the Soviet authorities Prokofiev simplified his musical language, to the point where his distinctive musical personality is, at times, scarcely recognisable.
Elegie, for horn and piano Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Denis Brain, widely acclaimed as the greatest horn player of his generation, died in September 1957 when his car came off the road as he was driving back from an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival for a recording session in London the following day. Poulenc’s sombre piece, dedicated to his memory, seems to epitomise the sense of shock felt by fellow musicians and audiences alike at his death.
The opening section alternates between an unharmonised twelve-note theme marked ‘Très calme’, and a quicker, somewhat Stravinskyan phrase headed ‘Agitato molto’. The main part of the work begins in gently elegiac in mood. As the horn introduces a brief reminder of the agitated music from the opening the music starts to move towards its first main climax. A second slow build-up leads to a climax even more impassioned than the first. This is abruptly cut off and a quietly sorrowful mood takes over, with the horn alluding to the Westminster chimes (Brain was a Londoner) just before the end.
Adagio and allegro, Op 70 Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
In 1849, the upsurge of revolution which began in Germany the previous year reached Dresden, where Schumann and his wife, Clara, had been living since 1845. In spite of his republican sympathies, he felt no wish to become actively involved (unlike Wagner, who eventually had to escape to Switzerland to avoid being arrested). On the contrary, the upheavals of public life only seemed to drive him further into his private world. As Clara noted in her diary, “It seems to me extraordinary how the terrible events without have awakened his poetic feeling in so entirely contrary a manner.”
Schumann turned to the intimate, domestic field of chamber music, and for the first time began exploring the combination of a single melody instrument and piano. Besides the Adagio and allegro for horn, he produced the Fantasiestücke for clarinet, the Three romances for oboe, and the Five pieces in folk-style for cello. In all four cases he indicated alternatives to the stated instrument; for the Adagio and allegro violin or cello are also suggested.
The opening section, marked ‘slow, with inward expression’, is based on a warmly expressive theme, which is recalled in the quieter episodes in the exuberant rondo (‘quick and fiery’) which follows.
© Mike Wheeler, 2011