The Natural Horn Hangout was full of fabulous tips and lots of horn history and starred three of the top natural horn players in the world: Anneke Scott, Anthony Halstead and Roger Montgomery.
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
Hello everybody. Happy Monday. Welcome back to the Horn Hangouts. I hope you had an absolutely lovely weekend and I hope you all enjoyed the third Horn Hangout that we did. What a lovely bunch they were. And I am with another bunch of lovely people today. I have them at three of the most amazing natural horn players, actually horn players in general, but natural horn players in the world. And um it’s just been such a lovely little moment before the Horn Hangout started for for me. I I hadn’t met Annika Scott before.
It was lovely to see Roger again and Tony was my teacher. So it’s it’s just so lovely to have all three of you here. Welcome everybody. Welcome everybody. Welcome Tony. Welcome back to the Horn Hangouts. And um and Roger, last time I saw you was uh we were we yeah, we had a very special project. It was the last thing I did before Corona started. Or Yeah, me too. Yeah, we were we were recording at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was recording a piece of Richard Bissell’s for eight horns and rhythm section.
It was absolutely fantastic. Quite a way to go out, but of course I didn’t know at the time that would be my last playing with other people. None of us did that. It was so weird, wasn’t it? To to actually I I got out just before they all the airports closed. So that will always stay in my mind as a very special special recording. And soon we’ll be hearing it, I hope. But uh that was it was yeah, you’re part of the my Corona history. And Annika, lovely to meet you at last.
Oh my goodness, it’s about time. I know. I have to tell you when I always ask the Horn Hangout audience who who they’d like on the Horn Hangouts, what should we do, your name always comes up. Oh, that’s lovely. You have a lot of fans out there, and you have a lot of people in the chat right now, um who who have been waiting for you to be on the Horn Hangout. So, it’s fine great to have you have actually, I think, Annika Scott must have the best set of chops of us all.
And do any of you know why? She has basically played us well, mostly every day. You didn’t on Black Tuesday, which I that was very um that was very appropriate of everybody that that that stopped their social media that day. You played uh Equona Bacarolle every day, like literally every day. Yeah, so um it it started um because uh a colleague of Roger and Tony and mine, um trombone player Adam Wolf, put up this thing right at the beginning of the whole Corona shutdown. And in fact, we’d just come back he and I play in the same orchestra, and we’d just come back from a a tour of the States.
And there was a sort of collective feeling of we’d just finished this tour, and we’d come back to this thing, and we it’s um it’s an orchestra where the musicians come from all around Europe, so we kind of felt very lost. We’d lost one another and things like that. So, he put up a um virtual Bacarolle thing that it’s still going. I think if you Google Bach Together, Adam Wolf, you’ll you’ll find it. And the idea was to put musicians around the world together playing this one chorale.
Um so, yeah, go all the horn players watching today, go and flood it with horn players, cuz you can basically choose whatever part you want. Um and he got in touch with me, cuz he knew I’d just got another new horn, which would have been completely inappropriate for the Spark thing, and said, “Oh, you know, how about you contribute that?” And I thought, “Ah, no. I’ve got something which would be much more appropriate, which is this corno da tirarsi.” And so I enjoyed it and I thought, “Actually, I know I’ve got nothing else to do for the foreseeable future, so it’s a really good way for me getting to learn to play this instrument, you know, it’s a small, manageable thing.” So every single day I played a Bach chorale.
Yeah, so that’s kind of kept me out of mischief. How many have you done in total? Um today is day 83. Wow. Um so if Yeah, every single day and it it’s it’s You know how it is, it’s nice to have a small, manageable task. And every every so often I get one and it’s a little bit you know, goes up goes either to a nasty key for the instrument or goes kind of like into a not very nice range. But it’s just Yeah, it’s just something I I’ve been doing every day is playing one of these chorales.
I’d thoroughly recommend it. I I must say listening to these, I haven’t listened to every single one of them, but a lot of them. Um Tony, why is it that these chorales are written so high? Well, at this point I was going to ask Annika to show us the corno da tirarsi because it it’s a completely sort of unknown quantity. It’s a known quantity to me. Certainly is to me. I mean, I I I stopped playing that natural horn nearly 10 years ago in public and I I regret I never ever explored the corno da tirarsi, which which you clearly have.
And I’m sorry to say I haven’t heard your your daily performances. I I I’ve known So I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but I’d love to see and hear this instrument. So tell us something about it. Well, I mean, Roger’s got an interesting perspective on this as well because I remember in 2000 when it was the Bach anniversary and Roger, you were doing all the cantatas with John Eliot. Some of them, yeah. Yeah, and and uh because you also explored this because I remember you came up with you were working with you know, Tony’s old colleague John Webb on this.
Yes, that’s right. Yes. Would would you like would like me to say a little bit Yeah, yeah, cuz I think that yeah. Okay, it’s it’s nothing like as sophisticated as your one, I think. What what I thought I mean the whole problem of a slide horn, which is basically what it is, is an instrument that’s supposed to taper all the way from beginning to end. How on earth do you introduce a slide? Well, how I I don’t understand I mean this is really for me having this is a fantastic learning tool and I think for most of us watching because how on earth did a slide get in there?
The person who I have to do the shout out to is there’s a colleague of ours Olivier Picon, French horn player. Um he plays a lot with Bach Collegium Japan and groups like that. Really not only a fantastic horn player, he’s also really good jazz horn player as well. And if you if you look for his work, he’s the one who’s been doing all the research. He’s the one who’s been doing a lot of looking around this instrument and he also he works with the Swiss maker Egger.
So this is the results of their research and everything. And basically the problem we have is no instrument appears to have survived. At least we’ve not been able to identify one. So we just have the music to go on. We can just extrapolate from the music that Bach wrote. And it was for quite a short space in time that he was writing for this instrument. And so what what Olivier has done is he has looked at instruments that a Leipzig maker at this time would have known, techniques that they would have used.
And so that’s the basis of this hypothesis. So you’ve you’ve got this bit which is um if you’ve ever seen the portrait of the trumpet player Gottfried Reiche, he’s holding one of these. So and then on the back you’ve basically got an alto trombone a bit of a alto trombone slide. So um so the back of it just pop that in there. And so the the the instrument that uh I remember from Roger the with that one am I right in remembering that the body you you move the body of the instrument up and down a slide?
Yes, that’s right. Absolutely right. So it was was it was it was um a tapered lead pipe which was which had um a straight sheath over the top of it and basically you held the lead pipe and moved the horn. Yeah. And it was similarly it was a um a very tightly wound horn like that although a little bit less um rigorously researched. I think it was the guts of an old alto of an old jazz trombone that John Webb had lying around. The two of them he wound into a horn shape and did a did a tapered body.
So that what that meant was that I suppose the the body of the horn was basically tapered apart from the one when you pull the slide out there was a little bit of cylindrical tubing there. And of course the big problem the two problems with this horn that I didn’t really foresee. One was you didn’t really have enough pull to get more semitone in a high key. And the other was that you’d keep on hitting yourself in the face. Yeah, so the the the actually the the thing I just realized now is the chorales that I’ve been doing it it purely was I just kind of put my phone on my desk and it’s kind of more comfortable to because I’m up I’m up in my room and I’ve got an attic ceiling here.
So it’s more comfortable to point that way. But the whole thing is you don’t see um So, that’s how it works. I haven’t I Something I haven’t shown the kind of like Yeah. I I I’ve got to out myself here. I’m a little bit ashamed. I was literally in the Bach Museum yesterday. I was in Leipzig all day yesterday, and I’ve just got back. I got back an hour ago. I went to the museum, and I thought, “I’ll look for Annika’s instrument.” I hadn’t actually realized that it didn’t really exist.
And I’m embarrassed to say that. Um I I was thinking you were you know, this was some I hadn’t looked up enough about it, but I’ve been seeing it so often. I thought, “Oh, I wonder if I can find it.” But, he he only used it in like four or something cantatas, or or what was that? Yeah, I think I think that from what I can remember, there’s only about four where he actually explicitly writes corno di tirarsi, but there’s a lot more where he would just write corno, but you look at it, and the writing is so different.
So, this is in high B flat or high A, and all these tirarsi parts really fit nicely on that. That’s one of the challenges of doing these chorales a day because every so often I have to do something which doesn’t fit nicely on this instrument. Um and they’re always very, very high, and it’s one horn on its own, often doubling the soprano line. Um so, there there are more cantatas than the four which Bach actually points out. Um but, yeah, the the the chorale a day the chorale a day’s been good fun, and it’s also been fun cuz I’ve also seen like lots of colleagues have also been sort of finding ways to do chorales.
So, there’s there’s a mate of mine, Nigel Breathwaite, up in the Midlands, and he’s been multi-tracking um uh Bach chorales with Wagner tubas. So, yeah, everybody should just go explore it. It’s great fun. But, chorales with Wagner tubas. I really like that idea, actually. F Wagner tubas. Um, if you’ve just joined us, if you just joined us live on Facebook, um, welcome. You are watching the natural horn hangout with superstars of the natural horn world, Annika Scott, Roger Montgomery, and it’s not Ellen Odell on the left-hand side of my screen.
It’s Tony Halstead. Tony, your your it’s Ellen’s name on your on your on your on your on your picture for Zoom. But, um, it’s she’s a technical one in the family, right? Well, she’s my wife, and this is her laptop. It’s not my laptop, and I don’t have Zoom on my computer. So, I’ve had to ask the special permission to borrow Ellen’s laptop, and that’s why it’s got her name on it. Ellen’s a a wonderful violinist, uh, but she has suffered the horn, uh, getting on for 40 years now, 36 years, I think.
Tony, do you recognize this? Of course. I remember you bringing that into Guildhall just after you bought it from John Webb. And I was absolutely delighted, as you may imagine. Delighted on on musical terms, not on financial terms. No, I remember my father complaining about the price of this. It was at the time, and I’m sure it would be even cheaper now, but I’m told that second-hand ones now, well, they’re only available second-hand. Sadly, my colleague, John Webb, passed away in 2014. Um, but second-hand ones do turn up, and they’re pretty pricey now.
But, look, when we talk about price, the modern horns, the natural horns, Baroque, modern, whatever, you need to speak to Ellen, because my wife, because she’s a violinist, she sometimes hears me talking to a pupil or somebody on the phone, and I say to them, “Look, this is a really expensive horn.” And the violinist just think, “Yeah, whatever.” 10,000 pounds, I say, and she says that’s she’s googling that’s entry level for a violin. So we’re lucky we all players we can get the most expensive horn in the world and it’s entry level violin.
Yeah, absolutely here here. Now, I just wanted to show you um I asked Tony and Roger and Annika if they could send me some photos that we could do this complicated screen sharing thing because there are so many different types of natural horn. Mine’s a whole stead web and I’m very proud of it. And by the way, Stefan Dohr just used it recently to play in the Britain tenor horn and strings. That’s actually the the outing it’s had the most recently was was a few series a few concerts of that.
Um and uh and he loved it. So um but there’s the Annika sent me some absolutely you Annika you’ve got an amazing website, I must say. Really an amazing website with also if you want to know anything natural horny uh go go to Annika’s website there’s a short history of the horn and there’s there’s some that’s Are they all yours, Annika? Yeah, I was just giggling when when Tony was talking about absolutely agree with you about what you’re saying about entry level prices for string instruments.
The The problem problem is when you start to get more than one and yeah, so this is um these are all mine. Um there are some that are not there on there. Um but yeah, you when you work in in the sort of historically informed performance world you find yourself gravitating towards, you know, you want to have a a German instrument to do 1830s repertoire and another one to do 1860s and and I I think part of the reason I’ve got so many piston horns is I’m just trying to find one that does everything I need it to do, you know, they they all they They have different quirks and oh, that one’s not mine.
That the two that two valve one that belongs to Chris Larkin. Right. That was one that he And then we go all the way down there. Cor solo, why do you have a picture of of him here? Uh because the uh to the left is that same design of instrument. Right. Got it. Um yeah, so um yeah, that that’s uh uh And then we go down here to the valves. We’re doing a We’re doing a quick history of the horn within seconds. The thing about these horn hangouts, I don’t like to answer the questions you can Google.
We like to get down to the nitty-gritty. So, you can see all these on Annika’s website, the valve horn. And then we get right down to the bottom. I was very happy to see that. Yay! So So, and then also Tony, look at this pretty one here. Look. Isn’t that pretty with the painted bell? Is that a web? Yes, it’s a web hosted. Yes. And who painted the bell? Um Isabelle Ocelot. She’s um a Belgian um she’s um she I I met her Jeroen Billie the uh Belgian Oh yes, Jeroen.
Yeah, I know. Mhm. last year. Isabelle is an old student of his. And she’s doing really interesting research at the moment into the whole art of painting bells. Yes. She’s a um also she’s a fine art restorer. So, she’s looking at it from the point of view of how we preserve these things and how we do it. Her work’s really interesting. And so, yeah, she painted it for me. Beautiful. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Um so, thank you for those. And Roger, poor Roger, I didn’t mean to stress you.
I said, “Roger, send me some pictures of your horns.” Um and you have a wonderful Google link, but I didn’t want to share it here. But maybe if you don’t mind, maybe when we finish and we can we can we can share the link and then you can see all Roger’s special horns. Um but Roger, people are writing in and saying Isaac has said, “Can you ask Roger to explain this photo?” Yes, I can explain that photo. It’s been uh very tastefully updated by Sarah. I think it has the You think cool, huh?
We were proud of that. This is um this is one of a very long series of um publicity photos done by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Um it’s a self-governing orchestra. It’s It’s Although I I do I do quite a bit of period instrument performance. That’s That’s where I the main part of my activities um are based now in period instrument. And I’ve um I think I succeeded Tony in 1994 as as first horn of the orchestra. And I sort of ticked along um as joint principal with Andrew Clark until he left and then then I had to sort of give a bit more serious commitment to it.
Um but they had used to have every season used to be theme have themed publicity. And we never knew what it was and they would just uh invite people to turn up with their instrument and uh contort themselves into various uh poses uh for the for the publicity. And I I I sometimes used to dread these cuz I the very first one I did and I won’t show you that picture. They were trying to show the similarities between musicians, the musicians of the orchestra, and athletes.
Oh, we want to see that picture. I’m afraid you you can’t cuz it’s uh I haven’t got it right here. Okay. I’m going to I’m going to bug I’m going to bug you for that and we’re going to try and post that. very old one that we’re talking in the ’90s. But basically I had to have two natural horns suspended from the ceiling Ah, you were doing a gymnastic rings. Yes. But I was upside down. So they had me hanging hanging by my legs from a trapeze holding onto these pretending that I was supporting myself.
And it took so long it took about an hour to get the shot done and it doesn’t look good because my my tail coat is hanging down behind me like a bat. And all the blood’s gone to my head and my cheek puffed out and We need this picture. We need this picture on the horn hangouts. I will do my best to bribe Roger to get hold of that. Um, yes. So, for those of you who joined us we are what we are holding a natural horn hangout today with Annika, Roger and Tony and we’re looking forward to getting your questions.
I know a lot of you started watching off watching on the website and the sign of a really good horn hangout is when the website crashes because there’s so much traffic. So, that’s what’s happened to the website but never fear because everybody, the horn hangout viewers are just the best. They’ve all moved over to Facebook en masse. So, that’s why we like to stream in two places so nobody’s missing a thing of this and if anyone does then it’ll be archived later. So, thank you for all of you horn hangout regulars that have moved over to Facebook but are keeping the chat going.
It’s quite incredible, really. My mom has just written, “Tony, my mom says good afternoon from Isha. She’s very happy to see you again.” How lovely. I remember the last time I saw your mom and it this does dates me I’m afraid and her too was I sat next to her in the Queen Elizabeth Hall when you, Sarah, played Mozart concerto with that orchestra. Was it David Josefovits? Yes. And it was beautiful beautiful musical playing. Thank you. I learned it all from you. Would have been even nicer on the natural horn, Sarah.
Ooh. Now, the thing is about the natural horn, I before the hangout started I said to Tony, I well, I said to all three of you actually, I warmed up on my natural horn today and as a as a purely modern horn player, you do feel a little bit naked, a little bit vulnerable with no valves whatsoever. I know you’re used to it, Annika. I was watching you playing the gallays. I mean, it’s just incredible this hand technique that goes on there. Um, by the way, if you haven’t seen them, watch Annika’s Gallay uh the the 12 Caprices, aren’t they?
Yeah. Amazing. Just amazing. Um and uh you’re welcome to put the links to all these things in the chat to my dear Horn Hangout viewers. You guys are so active with with um with with links. Thank you for that. Um but, warming up on this, I’m happy to get the harmonics. And I said told you this and Tony, you said something very important about why we should play the natural horn. Why all of us should play the natural horn. Sorry, I just a question to me.
Yes. Just No, you remember you what you told me before the Hangout. Sorry. Because because you I said, you know, we should all horn players should learn how to play the natural horn. Not only because it’s our origin, because it’s good for our Our soul. The soul. Yes. The the the inner the inner horn player. Yes, that’s true. I mean, surely there’s nothing to beat the the sense of achievement of of man or or woman wrestling with the elements, wrestling with science, wrestling with physics. And the fact that we can bend a harmonic series to to do our bidding.
It’s always seemed to me to be something little short of miraculous. And I have to say, although I don’t play the natural horn in public, I decided to give up on my 65th birthday before people wished that I would give up. Anyway, but I still practice it every day. I don’t have any of my posh instruments now. I sold my lovely web instruments, but I do practice on a very cheap entry-level Chinese-made natural horn. And using that horn, I’ve been able to discover in the last few days using Annika’s humpback bridge, I’ve been able to finally, after years, I can now, I think, play quite strongly the low E below the G.
I’ve always been able to sort of get that by lipping down, but now using your Look, everybody. You’ve got to get any hand horn player out there, you must you must must buy Annika’s absolutely my book. Here it is. Thank you for that, Tony, because that that is coming up. The historical one. Bravo for that, Annika. It’s really I do not own it. I will do you a swap, the book for a horn hang out t-shirt. How does that sound? Okay, done. Um yes, so this there’s something about a humpback bridge in there about the way Annika, over to you.
Well, I’m it’s it’s interesting. We were talking earlier about you know, who studied with him and things like this because I’m I’m certain this is something that I picked up from Andrew Clark. So, Andrew Clark was my first teacher and he was one of your students. And one of the things which I think with hand technique, especially when we’re coming from the point of view of having learned stopping on the modern horn, you know, this idea of it being sort of a fixed open position and you’ve got this this door that opens and shuts.
And actually what you’re doing with hand horn playing a lot is a lot of stuff with your fingers. So, for example, I sometimes pull back my fingers so they’re like that or sometimes I’ll bring two fingers down below the other. So, there’s all these sort of subtle things. And that kind of sounds really complicated, but it’s basically you have to think about intonation the whole time and adjust accordingly. And I kind of find that approach a bit more um easier than going fractions and things like this.
But the humpback bridge is if you imagine um a normal neutral hand position as if you’re playing the modern horn open, but then you just bring that from the far side of the bell to the body side, so you have if that was the curve of the bell like that and then you can sort of just flatten it or make it more steep. And are we are we like like like like that? Hello. Can’t If I show here, um So, normally like like that, but if you pull it to this side Everything I tell my students not to do.
Yeah, exactly. Um so, pull it to this side and then you can you can if you bring your hand closer together or further apart. So, so you know, you could have it flat on that side or but the idea about bringing it to this side um so, for things like um what are we in? Of course, it’s full of water. Yeah, of course. It’s a horn hangout. We understand. Yeah, that didn’t get it. But that’s the problem with this design of horn, you get all the water in there.
So, if you use it for the top F, it means you get a very open sounding F. I wonder if I if we can use that on stage in sort of big Mahler symphonies or something or to get that pedal E in the Shostakovich, you know, in Shostakovich five, you know? It’s just it’s just you have to be very flexible, very fluid. And I think as soon as you get away from this binary idea on off open stopped. And as soon as you start to just be a little bit more fluid and experiment with what you’re doing with your fingers, then you can get so many more colors and the intonation tends to be better.
Yeah, so Fantastic. Sam Halpert has just posted posted the link link to your book. Margaret has as well. Andre Lipkin says hello to all three of you. He’s watching. Hello Andre. Jennifer Montone, principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra is watching. Good morning, Jen. It says, “Thank you. This is so helpful.” Um and Sam also No, Michael Seriso wanted to know, “What’s the oldest horn you all own?” Roger, which is your oldest horn? If you you might not have spray painted that yet. I I just every every time I I want to speak to Roger, I just I just have to just look at look at your picture because it’s just if any of you haven’t seen it, you need you need to see it.
Sorry, I just have to show you again. For those of you that’s only just joined, that is Roger spray painting the horn hangout. Thank you, Sarah. That’s about that was edgy as I get. Nasty photos like that. Um You’re cool. I think is actually a little almost like steer horn. So, I think it’s it’s like a little hunting horn. Um I found it in Bermondsey Market. It plays one note only. Well, it actually plays two notes and they’re a major seventh apart. Um and it I I think it’s old because it’s it’s seamed.
It’s tapered all the way through and basically it’s just like an animal horn. It’s just a single sort of curve. Um it’s seamed Oh, like that? Exactly that kind of taper. Just a little bit smaller. Uh just notice it’s just about that size, actually. That only gets one note. Yeah, that just about that picture as well. A semitone lower than that. Um and it’s it’s uh it’s also got little pairing marks on it where it’s obviously been shaved down with a knife all the way around.
So, I mean and those kinds of techniques uh suggest to me that it’s quite old. I don’t know how old, but all of the hand horns I play on and baroque horns are copies. I’m I’m just too nervous of transporting real old instruments around and I’d I’d hate I wouldn’t dare um have people work on them, solder them. So, and copies tend to be more reliable unless you’re very fortunate. So, I think the actual oldest horn I own is probably apart from that uh steer horn um is probably around the 1850s, 1860s.
Well, that’s that’s still like pretty original and pretty worth Yeah. Yeah, they are. Unfortunately, most of them are undated. Mhm. Um there’s one one interesting horn that I I sent to you on the Google links, which is a is by Zimmermann Zimmermann um who was from Leipzig and St. Petersburg. And this was obviously from the St. Petersburg branch of it because it’s uh it’s all the all the writing is in Cyrillic. And it lists some uh it says uh music house Zimmermann, St. Petersburg. And then it lists all the prizes that this particular model of horn won.
And I think the last one was possibly in Chicago in about 1901. Can I post this link to your Google pictures? Please do. Please do. Okay. It’s up. So, if any of you if any of you want to see that, I’ve just put it on the on the Horn Hangout page, too. That is That is Rod Those are Rodger’s pictures. You can have a look at that. Um They’re really beautiful. So, there’s a a Schmied’s co. There’s an interesting one. It looks a bit like Anika’s own horn.
It’s got the triangular configuration of the valves. And that’s by uh Schmied’s co in uh who’s I think in Looney, which is on the borders of Czech of Czech. And um I think you can date By looking at the dates of the makers, you can approximately guess that it was in the 1890s. But um a lot of instruments are undated. Yeah. So, it’s it’s it’s a guess. But all my all my natural natural horns are very modern. Yeah. Tony, your What What the cheapest one you play on?
Is that the Chinese model that you that you you warm up on every day? Is that Is that a a reasonably priced one? If people If people watching this are going to take your advice and play the natural horn because it’s good for the soul and all all of us, I think, need to learn this technique. All students need to learn this. Um otherwise, we don’t understand the origins of our instruments. Right. Right. Yes. Um I’m sorry to turn this into an advertising plug, and I don’t mean it to be.
Go for it. Go for it. But um I I do sell um from my website, but mostly to people who were able to call around here, but now now they can’t for the time being. I’ve got this very, very cheap entry-level, uh, natural horn, hand horn, made in China, um, and it comes with the four middle crooks. Let’s call them the four solo crooks, uh, F, E, E flat, and D. It comes in a large padded case, um, and I sell it for 565 lbs GBP.
So, uh, I’m not saying it’s perfect. It’s entry-level. There are certain historical things which are simply not correct, but it works up to a point. It works very well. It’s got a very small bell throat. I’ve got it here. Good. Well, well, Roger, where’s your little mini one? Can you Is there any way near Hang on a sec. I was going to look for it. Right. There you are. That’s a natural horn, uh, made in China. It’s got the name Halstead on it for some reason, but, uh, anyway, it’s, um, it does the job.
It’s got a very, very small bell throat. So, a very small movement of the right hand achieves a very large uh, change in pitch. Um, I’m not saying it’s perfect, and lots of people who buy them move on within a year or 2 years to something much more sophisticated, but it is here. It’s available, and, um, it it does the job up to a point. All right? That’s That’s really great. And, um, when when I started starting the hand horn with you, there was no you I remember you I still have on my Mozart 3 music, which I just use I’ve just recorded Mozart 3.
Um, and yeah, I did. I know. And and we we put some mambo on the CD as well. I’ll I’ll I’ll send you one, Tony. Yeah, it’s, uh, Love to hear it. very exciting. But, on my music, I thought of you I recorded it in Havana, in Cuba, before all this all the whole world shut down. And on my music are your half stopped and your circles, you remember? Your half-stopped, your whole-stopped, your They’re all on my Mozart 3 music. So, you you are I love this music.
It’s just, you know, it it just reminds me of you all the time. But, there was no book yet when you were teaching me the hand horn. There wasn’t. There wasn’t. And that’s why I think Annika’s book is is a major, major achievement. I mean, don’t underestimate this. It’s just phenomenal. But, if if I’d been teaching you then, sorry, if I’d been if I’d had access to this kind of brain or things that I’ve been doing for many years now, I might have given you something like this.
Now, I I wrote this out Oh, yeah. only 2 weeks ago. And that that shows the building blocks of the notes that you manipulate in Mozart number 3. Screenshot it. So, so in other words, when you play um the fourth note, um you you you need to in a preparatory way, you need to play the the the the the horrendously out of tune 11th harmonic in all its ringing glory. You need to get that pitch I wouldn’t say locked in place on your lips because once you’ve got it, you’ve then got to bring it down slightly with the hand.
Um but, you’ve also got to vocalize the F as well. So, that it’s it’s a double process. The hand plus the vocalization, the the internal part of the mouth, which gives a not too stopped quality. Similarly, when you play the B, when you play the last note of that bar, when you play the B, your lips are on a C, but your hand, your brain, and the inside of your mouth vocalize a B. So, I mean, basically, I I wrote this out for an adult pupil of mine, uh Robin Blach, who’s the son of the late conductor Harry Blech, and he’s about my age, and he’s doing great on the natural horn.
And every every day, in fact, he’s going to have a Zoom lesson from me in 2 days’ time. And he’s really, really enthusiastic. And the other day he said to me, “Please, could you tell me what harmonics am I supposed to be on?” So, I wrote this little chart out for him. Anyway, That’s fantastic. Tony, do you think we could have a copy of it? Everyone watching today? Yes, it’s only the only the exposition. But I mean, look, people, you can do this for yourselves. You simply you simply identify in the in the music.
Obviously, it’s got to be the horn written in C part. I mean, forget all that transpose for horn in F. That is nonsense as far as the natural horn’s concerned. But you have to know, really you have to know which harmonic you’re actually manipulating, you know? And forget this business about stopping, pushing things up. The only two in the whole of the first movement of Brahms R3, the only two harmonics you have to push up are the written F sharp and the written middle B flat.
I mean, those are the only two that need to be seriously manipulated upward. I mean, when when you read Anika’s book, you will read all sorts all sorts of other stuff, the subtleties of of getting the major third to resonate correctly. I mean, you know, major thirds, if you get them to resonate with a piano, it’s hopeless out of tune for the natural. This is a a very, very big subject. And once again, I can’t stress too strongly, get Anika’s book, everybody. I think that is the bit that’s the biggest lesson for today so far.
Get Anika’s book. I can’t wait to get it because, you know, guys, most of you well, most of you’re horn players. I know some we have a cello player from from Hamburg, and we have some really loyal people that do not play the horn, but watch every and a viola player, John from New New They all watch the horn hangouts. But most of you are horn players and I can’t stress enough how important it is to know about all this stuff to be able to play our repertoire, you know, our our classical and and baroque repertoire, also romantic in in the same in the right way because you can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t just sort of guess where the notes are going to be and what and the colors of the notes and Mozart 3 for example, actually Tony you might not approve cuz I put a little bit of mambo in my in my cadenza in the in the concert rondo, but um I will send it.
I’ll send it. But for example, you it’s not only it’s not only baroque and classical stuff. Roger, you played Can you just show us did I saw your little your little horn you were talking about? Show us. That’s so sweet. I don’t know if you can see, but it’s probably too close up not light enough, but all of the little pairings are here. Wow. And what does it sound like? Is the main note, but it’s always good La la unusual harmonic series romantic Very romantic, huh?
I think it it it sounds like, you know, when you hear um you know, the really ancient the lurs and the cornix and things like that. They often have that seventh. Right. So you you hear that seventh in the in the real kind of um Do you There’s a project that Letizia starts. Letty starts. She’s just got a project going on at the moment in which she’s exploring all these really really ancient Sarah, she’s probably somebody worthwhile knowing about. She’s got this really exciting project that’s happening I think at Brighton Pier.
And she’s collaborating with Peter HOLMES WHO’S THIS OH. OH. We’ve got the big voice coming in now. Oh my Telescope. How big is that? Looks like an Alpine horn. Oh my goodness. Look at the mouthpiece. Tony, it sounds like La Danza or Cadenza. Anyway, it’s about 8 ft tall. But uh yeah, I remember Letty borrowed this one when she was start just when she was starting off that project. Yeah. It’s not a That’s not a Swiss instrument, is it? It’s not an alphorn. No, it’s it’s it’s Nepalese.
Oh. Nepalese. Ah, right. My my mom brought it back. Uh she went went trekking in the Annapurna range. And I I said, “Please, please bring me back a Tibetan telescopic horn if you can.” Yeah, you’re not bringing a I gave her 150 pounds. I said, “You know, if if if you can get one for that, that’d be fantastic.” And she she went to the Bodnath Monastery in in Kathmandu. And she said on no account they wouldn’t accept more than 30 pounds for it. So, she gave the rest of the money away.
Oh. And I got I got this. It’s beautiful. It’s it’s got some It’s bronze. It’s a bit dusty at the moment, but it’s it’s got jewels. It’s beautiful. Well, that all counts as natural horns, doesn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Oh wow, Roger, that’s amazing. Um so, this project of of Letty is her name? Letty Laetitia Stott. Right. Okay, well we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll keep a look out for that. Um we we’ve had the typical I Roger, I’ve got a question for you, but just before I ask you that question because we’ve gone we’ve done Baroque classical already.
We’ve gone from Bach to Mozart, and now I want to get on to Schumann. This is like history in a nutshell, but the mouthpiece question has come. And on Horn Hangouts, we’re all allowed to be nerds, right guys? And girls? So, and the mouthpiece question is always allowed. And Thomas Hanson has asked about mouthpieces for natural horns. Now, can you tell us what you play and and what’s a good idea, especially maybe if you’re starting off cuz I remember I played my I played on my mouthpiece, Paxman 4B.
That’s what I was playing on at the Guildhall. Um Roger? Well, I have um I tend to play on a PHC Paxman Houstoun Tuttell 22A with a standard rim. It looks somewhat like this. Yeah. But I what I have and it’s it’s an slightly unusual shape, but it suits me because basically there’s many variations you can have to this um uh mouthpiece range, but essentially a bit like driving a car, it doesn’t matter whether you have your clutch high or low, it’s the biting point that matters.
But changing though, I have with a similar uh exactly the same rim size, I have a pure funnel mouthpiece here that’s um just goes all the way down. There’s no back bore at all. And that’s that’s kind more appropriate to um playing classical. Why is that? Um it’s because we know from um from various tutor books that they tended to play on that kind of shape mouthpiece. Now, the practical upshot of that is that it’s it’s not just a matter of changing the depth of the cup.
It behaves quite differently. Yeah. I find it Personally, I find it very hard to get edge and a lot of power on this one and it’s quite tiring to play. Um and for that reason, I do it quite sparingly. I mean, I I’ve already Tiring. a bit of a compromise because I it’s that’s a reasonably large size rim for a classical mouthpiece. Some of the other ones I have are more like the Dennis Brain type mouthpieces here. They’re really little one. Mhm. Almost I mean, it’d be in danger of falling inside my mouth a lot of the time, I think.
But um Yeah, so but because I’m not exclusively um a natural horn player, I tend to swap between instruments a lot and a A of the my playing is done when I’m teaching in lessons and I find it easier just to stick to my modern mouthpiece. Um Is Yeah, if I had more time and more time to work up repertoire, I think I would um I I think it’s really important that people know this um uh Roger actually has also a a modern horn job, right, Roger?
Yes, that’s right. Yes, for the last 20 years I’ve been hiding away in the pit at the Royal Opera House in London. But but I find if if I’m swapping mouthpieces, I just get in a mess. So, how do you manage to do your your your you know, your OAE work and then your um your How do you do all that? I I tend to I tend not to use my historical mouthpiece except where there’s a really important point to make on it. Right. And and another thing which people will have picked up is that Roger uses the same rim or a copy of it on his historical cup or historical mouthpiece but he uses the same rim that he uses on his modern mouthpiece.
Now, that’s very difficult to do if you’re going to be super duper authentic because by and large and I’m sure Annika will tell us about this, old mouthpieces I would say generalizing but but there are always exceptions. Old mouthpieces tend to be narrower in the rim, therefore more a wing one could say more sensitive to very small lip movements than than a typical modern mouthpiece. But there is such an enormous range and there was then an enormous range of mouthpieces. Um I will what they say in What do they say in House of Commons?
Give way. I’ll give way to Annika in a very in a few minutes but I want to show you something quite remarkable. Um I’ve got a few old mouthpieces, yeah? Now, this I’m told when when it when I bought it, this was supposed to be a Rau mouthpiece. It’s made of nickel silver. It’s made in one sheet of nickel silver, which is folded over, has a seam in it. It has a pretty pretty narrow rim by modern standards. I’m sorry I’m not holding it very You’re being very brave because usually when we have the mouthpiece question, people do this.
They say, “Look, I play on this. Oh, it’s really dirty. I’m not showing you this.” Well, I I I can play on that for a few minutes. And the reason why I can play on this is because it may not be clear because you can’t see perspectives, you can’t see comparative sizes. But the this diameter inside the cup, that is exactly the diameter that I have always used, 18 and 1/2 mm. Now, by 19th and some 18th century standards, that’s actually not enormous because the Dauprat uh said that for a second horn, uh a mouthpiece should be 20 mm on the inside.
Now, that’s very large. That’s huge. That’s like Roger’s uh Tibetan mouthpiece, which by the way, Roger, someone has just asked That That’s the That’s That’s from one side to the other. That’s not That’s not the whole thing. It’s internal. Well, Roger, Roger, someone Nigel Braithwaite has just asked if you put a stopper in the mouthpiece and use it for Can you use it for beer or mead of your Tibetan Tibetan mouthpiece? Sorry, Tony, carry on. All right. I want to say the internal diameter of this mouthpiece is 18 and 1/2.
But 20 mm was was the internal diameter in the Dauprat, unless I misunderstood that. Anyway, I’m only showing that because that is an authentic Rau mouthpiece. It’s a corbass mouthpiece. It’s like like Roger demonstrated, just a funnel with no choking, no bore, and the smallest point of the mouthpiece is right there at the end. But, this is a mouthpiece I bought in Bologna market 45 years ago, and that’s the rim of it. I mean It’s really It’s really hard to see, but if you hold it sideways, we can see it easier.
Yeah, sort of in the black. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Well, that is a huge rim. And here’s another one, which I also bought in Bologna, and that I showed to Fitzpatrick, and he said that was a baroque mouthpiece. There’s no bore No Sorry, there’s no back bore in that at all. Just a huge great hole through the middle with a very broad rim indeed. I mean, both of these have have very wide rims by 18th century standards. Um and but what I do is I use um a plastic rim because my lips have been allergic to metal for many, many years, and I use um a screw rim, and the the plastic rim simply screws off.
And I sometimes use this Once again, a funnel mouthpiece, just like Roger’s, and exactly as Roger has said, I use the historical mouthpiece with its deep funnel and its lack of a choking lack of a back bore. I use it in certain contexts. I might use it in a in a in a lecture recital. Very rarely, when I was playing in public, I would use it for basso crooks. So, to give much, much less resistance, I use this very deep funnel cup, say, for C basso downwards.
I could never get the high register to work even on the D crook using one of these funnel mouthpieces. But, I think it’s about I I’ve taken up too much of this conversation. No, you have not, Tony. You’re such a You’re such a legend for us, Tony. You can take up as much of the horn hangout as you want. I’d love to hear what Annika says now about old mouthpieces. Yeah, she she’s been she’s been collecting I She’s went Oh, I I’ve I’ve just been collecting Okay, so I I live in a house with far too many instruments in it.
Um but I I’m coming from a bit of a different perspective on mouthpieces, which is um for starters what Sarah, you were saying about the confusion about when you’re swapping. And I kind of wonder whether languages are a good analogy with this, which is you know when people start to get proficient on many, many, many different languages. Acquiring another one and another one and another one seems to become easier because you’ve got so many different languages under your belt and you can use that information from this for that and the other.
But, when you’ve just got two languages, that can take a while to get going. And my my inroads into playing with historical instruments was especially informed by Claude Maury, who was my teacher I studied in France with him. And I just have this feeling, which is if you’re going to play natural horns, if you were to play a baroque violin and use a modern bow, that would not make any sense. Why Why use a modern bow with a baroque violin? You You lose that feedback loop that you get from the instrument.
So, when I was when I was a student, I was really keen to start to play on historic mouthpieces, but it’s it was challenging because again, it’s the a cost thing, you know, if you’re going to keep on acquiring them, it it starts to mount up. And so, actually my first inroads into playing on historic mouthpieces was I got one of Tony’s the the Vienna horn the the Vienna horn mouthpiece that um you made. Yeah. Um and what I did was I It was like going on a diet.
I went from a kind of normal modern rim, and because you could get the screw rim, I basically got myself down to the dimensions that you find in the Dürkheimer and things like that. My My diet never works like that, but You know, each day you get get um but that was that was my way into it, and then I got a mouthpiece the Moosewood mouthpieces from the States. And because again the whole thing was they could do the screw rim thing, so that meant I could experiment.
Um but now my my mouthpieces I I use different mouthpieces for different horns because I kind of want to be reminded that this is a different horn when I pick it up. I don’t want to kind of uh obliterate that information I get from the instrument. I want to know that this is a different instrument because that makes me play it differently. That makes me approach it in a different way, which means I get the most out of the instrument rather than kind of feeling as if they’ve all got the same thing.
And like I I I don’t know whether this is going to be something that offends people on the horn hangout, but I’ve also I also do 19th century tenor horn playing. And so I’ve been doing saxhorn playing and things like that. So if I do that, I don’t use an adapter and a French horn mouthpiece with a 19th century tenor So saxhorns and tenor horns are basically the same thing. Um I I will use an appropriate mouthpiece for that. So I’ve I’ve got I mean um this this is a mouthpiece if I hold it against that, you might be able Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Against that, that’s good. So it this this is Oh, actually what I’ll do is I’ll hold it and then there we go. Ah. That this is this is like a really It’s enormous. Yeah. Um so this this is again this is a mouthpiece made by Egger and it’s based on uh um one in a museum. So I might use that for Baroque horn playing. Um the one I use I’ve got here this is a bit this is a bit like um what Tony was saying this is an original.
Oh, it’s it’s uh You’ve got a cool camera. That’s Oh, very good. So again like Roger was So Tony was saying there’s a seam down side. Um my my bog standard mouthpiece so most of the time I’ve got a uh The instrument I was playing earlier, that’s a Lucien Joseph Rau cors alto from about 1800, but my workhorse is a Marcel Auguste instrument from about 1830s. Um if I’m traveling, I’ve got um an instrument from Jungwirth with a screw bell, and they had the technology to do screw bells back in the 18th century, so nobody can give me any trouble about that.
If you go to the Horniman Museum in London, you’ll see that there’s some really old screw bell instruments. Yeah, I still like that one. The curly whirly one. Yeah, ex- exactly. Yeah. So, um most of the time the there’s uh mouthpieces made by Olifant in Paris, and those are my Those are my favorite ones at the moment. So, yeah, but I I yeah, too many horns, too many mouthpieces, but I try to use ones that are appropriate for the instrument. That’s You know what you say, and I think it it’s just resonated.
A lot of people have have been have been commenting on this. What you say is the fact that playing on a on a modern mouthpiece on a natural horn, you don’t get in tune with your you don’t become one with the instrument as much as you should. I’m thoroughly ashamed. I’m taking my mouthpiece off now. Different different people. I mean, it’s exactly as Roger was saying. I we have we all have different We have different things Hello. Uh George, hello. We can hear you. Thank you.
Sorry, I just heard a bit of back He’s in the Philharmonie right now, so I just heard about it. Sorry. Carry on. No, no, all it is is that we’ve got different um things that we have to do. So, we choose mouthpieces that are appropriate to whatever the task is in hand. So, yeah. Right. Well, I think that’s all fantastic advice, and um yeah, Susan Williams has said great approach, Annika Dog Bowmaster said it’s fantastic to hear your expert opinions. Um Olly Farm, everybody loves Olly Farm, me too.
I love them. Um do you remember the Grand-mère, their Grand-mère, who used to drink champagne in the middle of the day? She was She was amazingly cool. Um yeah, so thank you for that. That was true mouthpiece nerding. True Um we’ve done we we went from Baroque with Annika’s daily cantatas to Tony’s Mozart hand note tips. Roger, I just need a little something from you. Um first of all, if any of you don’t know this, I need you you have to know this. This is one of my favorite things Roger has done.
Um hang on, that is not That is not the one we want. That was Tony. We’re going to go here. Now look at this. Now look at this. Do any of you Do all of you know this? I hope you do. It’s called Naughty Notes, Roger. And that has got a lot of hits. Anyway, I won’t give away I won’t give away um give away too much, but if any of you don’t know the Naughty Notes by Mozart, get on over over onto YouTube and and look it up.
Roger, can you just tell us quickly what that was? Yeah, that was so that was um a reconstructed version by Steven Roberts of Mozart’s original sketches for the rondo of his D major concerto, which was actually the last one he wrote. You’ve gone a bit quiet, Roger. I think your microphone There you go. I’ll I’ll just I’ll just talk into the mic. Oh, you can sing us a song. Yeah, so so this is this was um for Mozart Mozart wrote it for like Geb, who was quite advanced in years at the time.
And he wrote a running commentary. Not very polite. Um you can check it out. There’s a translation there for those who can’t read Mozart’s writing. Um Anyway, it’s been done a number of times, but this um the the tech team at the Oxford of the Age of Enlightenment um managed to project the both the manuscript and the commentary behind Uh this does was a concert with quite a relaxed vibe in the Conway Hall in London a few years ago. Concert. Concert. I know. I know. We’re people were sitting around drinking and uh chatting.
Um And in in the first half of the concert I remember play we played the fourth concerto. That is what’s commonly known as fourth K495. And in order to indulge my colleague Martin, who’s always been on at me about um a little blip in the second movement where is it a B or is it a C? Um and everyone plays it as a B. But he he insists it’s a a C. Um so I did it in that concert because it was a context where I didn’t did not think there would be any critics there to point it out.
And now it’s on YouTube. It’s gone viral. Actually, that one isn’t. Oh, that one isn’t. No, it’s a lovely recording. Thank you. And I also love what a lot of the period orchestras do. They are so active in promoting what they do. Annika, you’ve done so many It’s funny when you look at your videos like I’m the principal horn for this and then the next one I’m the principal horn for this ensemble. Then the third one is That’s also because it’s a it’s a freelance field.
And so there are no job There are no real job jobs as an HIP uh player. And also as horn players, we often don’t get to play in all the repertoire. So you you have this very much portfolio career that of necessity because there’s not going to be one ensemble that will be in a position to give you enough work to keep you going. So yeah. So at the moment there’s there’s lots of lots of groups asking us to contribute things. Yeah. I think it’s really a really great idea, especially I especially like what the the OAE, the orchestra we we always used to say the orchestra with the urge for imbibement, but that’s not that’s not true, is it?
It’s Of course, you’re all terribly proper. The Age of Enlightenment, one of Simon Rattle’s most favorite orchestras. And they’ve done some very cool videos as well. So so I hope you can check those out. But Roger is a particular hero of mine because he played the Concertstück on an original instrument on first horn. All the time. I have to say, yes, um I think I felt more comfortable with it uh back in the late ’90s when I when I first had a go at it. And it it wasn’t the notes were the same.
Well, that’s the the notes on the page were the same. But I think because it felt more experimental then um Cuz did you it would be the reason you kind of got through it. Yeah, sorry. Did you do the Hanover Band one? that as well, yeah. Yeah, cuz I remember as a school kid going to Birmingham Town Hall to hear Hanover Band play. And Raudier’s would have been playing first horn, and Gavin, and you, and who was the fourth? And um I think that was Martin Lawrence.
Oh, brilliant. So I heard the Hanover Band do Concertstück with you when I was a teenager. And then when I was an undergraduate, I came to hear you play it with Gardner. So you you were really those were really formative experiences for me. someone told me you came to the Festival Hall last year as well. Yeah. Yeah, of course I did. You know, support my colleagues. Yeah. I think it was Yeah, um I have to say, it’s in spite of the fact that I felt in the ’90s got got away with it and uh produced a very nice recording of it.
It’s not a piece that I feel comfortable with and I don’t feel even feel it’s a piece that suits me very well. Um always as soon as it’s in the diary I have a a pit pit of the stomach feeling until and almost until you get out there on the stage and um I’m always glad when there isn’t one in the diary at all. Which horn did you use? I mean, everybody feel I would never play first horn in the concert stick if you paid me a million pounds.
Um but which what was the horn? Can you just tell us about the horn that was used in the For the first time the both the Hanover band performance when I was playing third horn and when I played first horn with the Orchestra of the Revolutionary and Romantic uh in in that was an instrument I bought in New York actually. It was sold to me as Bohemian F horn. It was missing a tuning slide and it had no crook. It had um little clock spring valves.
Um it was and and very very amazing hexagonal pattern on them as well. It’s hard to say exactly when it dated from but uh at a guess uh in manufacture it’s probably turn of the century. Um but Was it as What is as lightweight as a Vienna horn? I mean, I just can’t even imagine how the this feeling I know Stefan Dohr he just he loves the feeling of this this horn in your hand, you know, you sort of feel safe with this heavyweight instrument that you can press on your face for the top E.
you don’t feel safe with early valve horns. But what what was good about it? Because it took a it took a crook. Um then you have the option of um experimenting and I know I had lots of different crooks made and eventually I found one a Viennese It was a Viennese size crook interestingly enough. Um but but it took and it was a rotary valve horn but the the crook that um I I landed on in the end had almost all of the notes on it which is quite a rare thing for an early valve horn.
You’re normally hearing one note at the expense of another. Wow, is there a picture of that horn on your in your in your collection? Yes, there is. Oh, you even have it there? Well, I can the horn Yeah. I’ll have to climb a ladder. All right, okay. Well, we don’t up that ladder. Ah, okay. Well, we we’d like to do a horn hangout of Roger up the ladder next time. Roger Roger Tom Tom Greenleaf has just written in from Leipzig saying you’re the most worldly modern modest guy on the planet.
Modest? Modest. Okay. That’s very kind of him. Um, no, but um, we we posted the link to to your to your maybe someone can post it again to to Roger’s collection and Annika’s website. Oh, there it is. Oh, nice. I would feel terrified on a horn like that. I feel terrified enough on mine, but That’s that’s what it was like. Terrified. Well, the best thing is I bet they paid you a lot of money. Not. Tony Tony’s leaving the room. Tony, don’t don’t leave just yet.
We’re not quite finished because I’ve got a little question from Shipping Dong Fang who says, “What should we pay attention to with maintenance and care for a hand horn?” I’m asking that because in one of the videos I watched of Annika’s, she said, “We don’t like to polish them a lot.” I I remember when I first bought my my my first proper hand horn which was from Andreas Jungwirth and I turned up to my lesson with Andrew and I I I I asked him, you know, “How do we look after them?” And he said, “Don’t polish them.
It it looks naff when they’re polished.” And so, that that’s always stuck. The there’s um there’s a I can send you the links. There’s there’s a set of polishes that I use for certain things which um is recommended by the British Museum. They use it actually for curatorial things and there’s there’s a a wax that you can use, yeah. Can I just quickly interrupt you because someone just asked, “Where is that which Patricia wants to know which is the Horn Museum with the horn in it you were just talking about you and Tony?” The Horniman Museum.
The Horniman The Horniman It’s yeah, it’s The Horniman The Horniman in the in Southeast London near Forest Hill. Um and it’s got a really quite remarkable collection of instruments. I think one of Putz’s horns is there. It’s also got the I think it’s also got the Boosey & Hawkes archive. It’s yeah, well worth a visit. So, Horniman Museum Southeast London. Thank you. Link, please someone. Thank you. I’d like to say something about tuning slides, please. Yes, please, Tony. Maintenance. One of my bugbears is a tuning slide which is so heavily greased that it’s very hard to make instantaneous, you know, in in it’s sometimes in the space of three or four or five seconds, you can enhance intonation of certain notes by quickly adjusting the the tuning slide.
And if the slide’s too heavily greased, you can’t do that. On the other hand, you have to have some grease on it, otherwise it’ll wear out cuz the metal against metal. I have to say one of the most astonishing performances of the second part Well, the first and second of the Beethoven sextet opus 18 1B, which is a tour de force. I heard that maybe 20 years ago in Essen at a concert Hermann Baumann Festival when Hermann was had made a fantastic recovery from his stroke and I heard Lowell Greer and Francis Orval playing that piece and they both played stupendously, but but Francis played a wonderful second part and in the last movement particularly where you have to go he he moved the tuning slide advantageously.
So he was sometimes playing so open stop and sometimes stop open. I mean he was like a chameleon the way he did that but it very much depended on very quickly removing the right hand from the bell. Tweaking the tuning slide and getting it back in the bell. And I think if you can do that particularly when you’re playing that second part and lots of other places you’re at a great advantage. So don’t let your tuning slide become corroded, don’t let it become stuck because you won’t be able to do the job as well as you can.
Great. Thank you for that Tony. Roger any any pearls of wisdom to add? Yeah, just I think this I see this particularly on something that will become a thing of the past now. I think shared instruments in colleges. Yeah. Um but it’s very easy um not if if you’re not used to the instrument not to take care that the crook gets stuck in the in the receiver and that as you turn it pull it out you actually twist and buckle Okay, so so can you just explain that again?
So you shouldn’t do that? You should do that. We should do it You shouldn’t do that? No, if you can ease it by just giving it a bit of um Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Notice what key I warmed up in this morning. Sorry. Wimp. I’ll put I’ll put in the I’ll I’ll put in the the the little one in a minute. Yeah. I think I think you get a sense for how to handle the instrument after a while because what you can’t do either is grease it because then it would just slide around and fall around and start moving while you’re playing.
Are there any secret things to get the water out quickly because I must say if you know you do that and you do that are there any secrets? Tony, it’s your instrument. What what should what should I do? Don’t keep taking the crook out, particularly when you do it quickly. I’ll tell you why. Because what you just did then, you brought the crook round so it was at right angles. If you take it any further, you’re going to dent where the crook touches the body of the instrument.
So that’s something to guard against. Okay. With with with most double round crooks, you only have to turn the you can leave the crook in place, turn the instrument round once, twice, and then the water is in that angle bit where you empty it. Yeah. Yeah, you don’t have to necessarily remove the crook and do all this annoying stuff that some people do. Blow making an awful noise blowing. You can With with two rotations of the horn, you can then take your tuning slide out and get the water out that way.
You don’t necessarily have to take the crook out many many times. Water blowers are annoying on stage. Yeah. I hate water blowers. Let that be a lesson to you all. And people who are too noisy with the with the with the water key as well. Anyway, at this point I could make a plug for Andrew Joy’s extraordinary Joy Key, which I think is one of the most uh what’s the word? Sensational inventions for brass players, certainly in the last 20 to 30 years. Uh anyway, look, that’s another road we can go down.
But I think at some point you ought to have Andrew Joy on the I would love to have Andrew. I don’t have a water key. No, no, no. I’m talking about modern on Modern horn. I was going to say that it did that thing didn’t exist. Did it? No. People who are very noisy with water keys with them That’s annoying. annoy me. That’s all. Andrew Joy’s water key, everybody. Thank you, Tony. Annika, you just you We unfortunately we’ve been going for so long. We we’ve got to wrap up now.
There’ve been so I’m sure you can check out the chat on Facebook and you’ll see you’ll see the the various the maybe there’s some questions that we missed that you can answer yourselves. That would be amazing. But everyone’s really been saying thank you very, very much. Um, and and I’ve been watching from all over the world. Annika, you just fetched your horn. Was there something were you going to no, it was just it was just when you were I was I was just going to mirror what you were doing and and what what illustrate what Tony very eloquently explained.
Right. I thought maybe you wanted to Yes, Roger. I’ve just found I’ve while I was looking for my little horn, I found that poster I’ve been talking to you about. I found that poster I’ve been talking to you about. I found that poster I’ve been talking to YOU ABOUT. I IT’S NOW SMALL IN THE FACES. BRILLIANT. THAT IS BRILLIANT. I just screenshot that one as well. Hooray, that’s absolutely brilliant. Um, just before we go, I’m just going to play a I I want you to I want to play for you a little excerpt of what for me is one of the best horn recordings ever.
It’s not that it’s just played on that it’s played on a natural horn and it’s played amazingly well. It is literally for me and I think Annika and Roger, Tony will probably get very embarrassed now, but I would love to share this with you. For me, it’s really one of the best things ever. Here we go. Have I got a Have I got a second to say anything? You do. Okay. Just just about Tony cuz having learned with Tony, um, as I remember you I remember following going into a lesson after you once.
Um, You had hair like this. That’s right. I did. I had I had hair. But I remember that Tony used to he was as everyone probably knows he’s an amazing pianist really incredible. And I used to go in and he would just say what are you playing today? Sit down and play it no music just be all in his head. I don’t know whether everyone knows he’s also a flute player. I turned up once to play with the English Chamber Orchestra in Prague. Dvorak violin romance was on the on the program and I thought oh that’s that’s quite a lot of blowing in that.
Anyway I sat down to the rehearsal we went out there to rehearse. I sat down and I thought oh I this I recognize this handwriting on the part it was Tony’s cuz that used to be one that used to be Tony’s job principal horn of the English Chamber Orchestra. I don’t know I turned the page and it said take flute. What? And there was a flute part. I thought that looks very high for a horn. And it was an arrangement that I think Tony well Tony you perhaps you should tell this story.
Oh my goodness. You’ve got an amazing memory. So are you saying that you turned up to do the gig not knowing that you had to play the flute as well? Luckily there was a flute player there. Oh yeah yeah. So that My anxiety nightmare dreams. It’s a really story one of the things I did the leader sadly has passed away now. The the leader of the ECO at that time Jose Luis Jose Luis Garcia played the Dvorak romance absolutely beautifully and the director Quin Valardy of the ECO wanted to take that piece on tour with a skeletal orchestra with let’s say a Mozart 29 orchestra.
So two oboes and and two horns and yet the Dvorak romance which Jose wanted to play is actually for a full wind section it’s got its flute two oboes clarinets bassoons etc. So Quin Valardy said to me can you could you arrange the the Dvorak romance for two oboes and two horns. So, I I sat up at night, burned the candle at both ends, worked on it slavishly, and I came to the conclusion that it was not possible unless you had a flute playing it as well.
You know, you could just about Anyway, to cut a long story short, I I had to include the flute. And I I did have a few flute lessons in my life. Uh a couple from Whit Bennett and one I think from Peter Lloyd and I think And so, I wrote the first horn part to to double the flute at various moments. I I say no more than that, but it was a can of worms because obviously, if they wanted to play that piece after I’d left the ECO, they had to only one person who can do that.
play the flute. That’s all I’ll go no more. I’ll say no more than that. But thank you for raising it. I’m sorry that you were landed with that conundrum. That’s all. It really is like stress dream syndrome, you know, you wake up and you’re to you turn the page and it says take flute and it really did happen. That’s hilarious. Roger, thank you for that. That is really fantastic. Guys, we we’ve got we’ve got to take you there, but I think it’s absolutely wonderful to have had you here and the the biggest compliment to you all is that my website crashed.
So many people wanted to see the natural horn hangout that the website crashed. And thank you thanks to all of you that hopped on over to Facebook to watch it there and we’ll be putting up a recording of this very soon. There’s one thing that we still have to do and that’s the traditional horn hangout selfie. Everyone likes to take photos of us with our instruments. Who’s got an instrument nearby? Tibetan monk or the the the Tibetan trumpet or the Yeah, there we go. A whole stead chedel a whole stead web with no mouthpiece.
I’m just going to put on my my modern day mouthpiece. Um right, okay. Are we all looking through the There we go. That’s a good one. I like that, Roger. Okay, we ready? You guys ready for this the horn hangout selfie? 1 2 3 Tony Halstead. Click click click. I can hear all those clicks going from all over the world. Thank you for that. Annika, a pleasure to meet you. Really a big I hope everyone I want your book horn hangout t-shirt for a book, okay?
Is that a good Well, sounds great. Right. Roger, thank you so much for your for show for sharing your your wisdom and your photo. Um I want a proper photo of that, please. I’ll send you the full poster if you like. Oh, yes, please. Signed, I hope. And Tony, what can I say? You’re an you’re such a legend and such an inspiration for all of us. It’s getting very dark there in your house. I think you’re We’ll we’ll we’ll open the curtains quite soon. You’re you’ll be allowed out.
Thank you so much. A huge round of applause from all over the world for Tony Halstead because after hearing that Hanover band recording of the Weber Concertino, you could listen I could listen to that a million times, really. I think I probably have. Thank you so much for being with me. Let’s do a part two sometime, okay? Thank you for joining us and we’ll see you very soon on the horn hangouts. Keep a lookout on the website when the next one is going to be, very soon I hope.
And if any of you are hopping over to Andrew Bain’s warm-up class, enjoy that now. It’s middle of the afternoon here, but all of you in America, it’s time that you warmed up. Maybe you could warm up on the hand horn today. All the all the slide all all the the valves stuck down. How would you How would you recommend that? Can we Can we practice modern horn hand horn on our modern horns? Yeah. Yes, of course you can. Yes. Then I think that today is we’re dedicating today to the natural horn, thanks to you three.
Thank you very much. See you next time on the horn hangouts. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye.
Horn Hangouts are created by Sarah Willis of the Berlin Philharmonic. Brassbanned is a proud long-time collaborator and streaming partner.
