by Ian Zook

It’s exciting to resume writing these articles after a long pause while organizing and hosting IHS 57! This month’s album is one I have wanted to write about since the series began, and it feels fitting to resume with a record that ties together so many fascinating aspects of early horn repertoire and our instrument’s lengthy heritage. Released on Golden Crest Records in 1960, let’s dive into Horace Fitzpatick plays Music for Hunting Horn 1561-1840 on instruments of the period.

Horace Fitzpatrick (1934-2020) authored one of the mostly deeply researched and respected histories of our instrument, his 1970 publication The Horn and Horn-Playing and the Austro-Bohemian tradition 1680-1830 for Oxford University Press. While his focus and research was very euro-centric, Fitpatrick was actually born in Kentucky and studied with Philip Farkas at Northwestern University, followed by a Master of Music degree from Yale. The following phase of his career takes an unexpected turn, as he relocates to Austria to pursue studies at the Music Academy with Gottfried von Frieburg, solo horn of the Vienna Philharmonic. It is during his subsequent employment with the Vienna State Opera and Palazzo Pitti Chamber Orchestra in Florence that he develops a deep interest in historical horns and their performance practice. Fitpatrick became one of the leaders of the early instrument revival, presenting several recitals and lectures on the topic and, notably, taught natural horn at the Guildhall School and aided in establishing the Bates Collection of historic musical instruments at Oxford University.

As you will see from reading the reverse album jacket, the album track list presents a chronological account of traditional hunting calls from the 15th-19th centuries performed on both fox horn and trompe de chasse. In addition to the very detailed and illuminating historical notes Fitzpatrick provides on the album jacket, he also records several of the hunting calls in multi-track and is performing all of the harmonized parts together himself.

This album is truly fascinating as an inception point for recorded performance-practice on the horn. Fitzpatrick was a well-trained hornist and passionate reasearcher of early horn history, especially the development of the instrument and its pathway from forest hunting calls to its use as a true concert instrument. Let’s listen to two examples of these early calls:

“To Uncouple the Hounds”—from the "Muse's Delight," 1754

“Marseilles Hunting Flourish,” French 18th Century.

In both of these examples, Fitzpatrick captures the compound meter cadence and spirited nature of these calls. However, he was likely unaware of the deeply rooted performance techniques of trompe de chasse performers in France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg—these include the “blowing in” of first-phrase notes and a very pervasive vibrato, expertly coordinated between players when there are harmoninized parts.

This album also very notably appears to be the first recording of Beethoven’s Horn Sonata Op. 17 featuring a performance on natural horn. There are certainly earlier interpretations of this sonata, with the first being Fitzpatrick’s teacher Gottfied von Freiburg’s recording from 1937, followed by Dennis Brain in 1944 for Columbia and Miroslav Štefek in the late 1940’s for Supraphon. But Fitzpatrick’s is the first attempt to truly showcase Beethoven’s use of open and closed notes melodically on the natural horn.

The opening of the Sonata sounds that well-known opening horn call. Fairly deft hand-stopping by Fitzpatrick then captures Beethoven’s use of closed notes to voice-lead to stronger cadential open notes:

The next excerpt is the opening of the development section—here Fitzpatrick is not subtle with the interplay of closed and open notes, and the usage rate of closed notes is much higher here than in any other section of the piece. We notice a stylistic use of vibrato that would have been informed from his research as well.

The final selection comes from the coda of the Sonata’s third movement. Fitzpatrick serves up a penetrating open B♭ and tackles the following athletic arpeggiations with verve.

This recording of Beethoven’s Sonata is perhaps not the nuanced musical journey that many more modern natural horn performers and recording artists are able to produce. However, if we imagine back to 65 years ago, before the likes of Tony Halstead or Lowell Greer started to embrace the true range of technical and artistic capabilities of the natural horn, we can see Fitzpatrick’s work as a revolutionary endeavor worthy of appreciation and respect. Certainly if you have not read his 1970 publication and are interested in horn history, it is an absolute cornerstone of our research literature.

As a last note, I left the pricetag on the album cover—I found this album in mint-condition for $1 about 20 years ago! You never know what you’ll find when you’re treasure hunting!

Thanks for reading Horn on Record!

South Asia—Re-Discovering Haydn’s Il Distratto

by Vidhurinda Samaraweera

Not many composers ignite my passion quite like Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809). Dubbed the “Father of the Symphony,” his long tenure as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family forced him, in his own words, "to become original." This originality shines brightest in his demanding and virtuosic writing for the natural horn.

Haydn’s High-Flying Horns

Haydn’s relationship with the horn is very special, to say the least, contributing challenging orchestral passages and influencing later composers like Mozart and Beethoven. The Esterházy court prized the horn for its strong association with the hunt, a feature Haydn brilliantly exploited to please his patrons.

His horn sections often enjoyed unusual prominence; in works like Symphonies Nos. 13, 31, 39, and 72, four horns constituted roughly a quarter of the entire orchestra of sixteen or seventeen musicians.

A key characteristic of early Haydn writing, particularly in the festive C major symphonies, is the continuation of the Baroque clarino tradition, demanding specialization in the high register (cor alto). This contrasts sharply with the contemporary trend, where Mozart generally wrote safer, mostly harmonic parts for his concertos.

Haydn’s most spectacular horn writing, such as the fortissimo fanfares in Symphony No. 31, “Hornsignal” (1765), featuring four horns (two originally crooked in D and two in G), showcases this high-flying requirement. The brilliance of his C major symphonies, like the Maria Theresia (No. 48), often required horns in C-alto, sometimes functioning as "replacement trumpets" due to the absence of trumpeters at Esterházy.

The Comical Demands of Symphony No. 60, Il Distratto

My experience playing Symphony No. 60 (composed c. 1774) is a vivid memory of navigating brilliance and hilarity. This six-movement work, adapted from incidental music for a comedy about an absent-minded gentleman, was described by conductor Kenneth Woods as "possibly the funniest and most modern symphony ever written."

Jude Fernando and Vidhurinda Samaraweera performing Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with the Gustav Mahler Orchestra of Colombo (September 9.2025)

The horn parts, scored for two horns (and optional trumpets/timpani), contribute greatly to the celebratory and chaotic atmosphere. The players are required to transition seamlessly from supporting stately Baroque passages to executing sudden, jarring fanfares that anticipate the work’s many jokes.

My favorite passage—and one that requires utmost interpretive precision—is in the 2nd movement, where the horns and oboes blast a sudden forte fanfare mid-phrase in a mellow andante passage. This is the perfect embodiment of “the distracted.”

Figure 1

Another passage is in the finale (6th movement) where the energetic prestissimo comes to a spectacularly discordant halt, allowing the strings to noisily retune their strings—a pure moment of musical comedy. The horns must blast through the fanfare passages that precede this moment of absurdity, setting up the comic tension Haydn intended.

Figure 2

Compared to the adventurous, lyrical chromaticism found in Beethoven works, Haydn’s writing in No. 60 generally adheres to the strict natural harmonic series, emphasizing clarity and fanfare.

Period Instruments and Modern Adaptation

Haydn wrote for the natural horn (or Waldhorn), a valveless instrument that utilized a series of interchangeable tubes (crooks) to change keys. The tone quality was brighter and more penetrating, suitable for its origins as an outdoor instrument. The ability to play notes outside the harmonic series relied on hand-stopping (i.e. inserting the right hand into the bell in varying degrees).

When adapting these parts to the modern valved horn, we must strive to emulate the natural horn's sound characteristics:

1. Timbre: The modern horn tends toward a rich, dark sound. To honor Haydn, we must prioritize clarity and brightness. We can achieve this by adjusting the hand position (simulating the open bell sound) and using a conical mouthpiece.
2. Articulation: Haydn’s passages, restricted largely to the harmonic series, often evoke hunting calls (like those used in Il Distratto). We can use a crisper tonguing technique ("toh") and maintain the energetic esprit inherent in the original style. This is, however, open to discussion and may be a matter of personal preference.

Filling the Gap in Il Distratto

A persistent and consequential ambiguity in Haydn performance involves the notation of B-flat horns (whether alto or basso), as Haydn himself rarely specified. However, a related interpretive gap exists in how conductors treat the C horns in C major symphonies like No. 60, especially when optional trumpets and timpani are involved.

Despite scholarly consensus (led by H.C. Robbins Landon) that the C horns in Haydn’s festive C major symphonies must be played C-alto (high horns), modern conductors frequently default to C-basso, fundamentally changing the character of the music.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 60, Il Distratto, requires the horns in C to be performed C-alto. This decision is necessitated by both the context and the composition:

1. Programmatic Context: The symphony is built on dramatic wit, humor, and the notable fanfare passages. The high clarino register produces the requisite brilliance ideal for these fanfares and the C major solemnity.
2. Aesthetic Intent: Critics such as Antony Hodgeson note that performances using the lower octave horns "invalidate" the work because the horns "lumber along an octave too low" and the fanfare-like passages make "no sense at all." It is generally accepted that the upper octave is essential for the horns to function as the brilliant brass component, particularly since the work often includes optional trumpets and timpani.

To best preserve Haydn's inventive genius, modern performances of Il Distratto would need to restore the C-alto horn register. The brilliant, high sound seems to be not a mere detail; it might very well be the defining feature that allows this comic masterpiece to truly come to life. 

by Esa-Pekka Salonen

photo by Clive Barda

The horn was my first love in the world of music. I was learning the trumpet when I was ten but was persuaded to change to the horn by a schoolmate a couple of classes above me. He mentioned the famous assertion by Schumann: The sound of the horn is the soul of the orchestra. I didn’t have much of an idea of who Schumann was, but then my friend came up with an even stronger argument: if I made it to Orchestra A in my school (there were three levels), I could skip PE lessons for rehearsals. At that point, I started to get seriously interested.

My school, the Helsinki Finnish Coeducational School, had access to the top teachers in Finland, and I started my studies with Holger Fransman, the dean of Finnish horn players. He had studied in Vienna with Karl Stiegler in the late 1920s; his fellow student and roommate was Gottfried von Freiberg, who would later become the principal horn of the Vienna Philharmonic and give the World Premiere of Richard Strauss’s Second Horn Concerto. In 1937, Holger was appointed by Robert Kajanus as the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s first Finnish-born principal horn.

It is not an exaggeration to say that meeting Holger Fransman changed my life. Suddenly I had a direction and an authority to guide me along the path. After my first year as his student, I understood that music was the only thing I wanted to pursue as a profession and career.

Many of my early attempts at composing were horn pieces. My first published work was Horn Music 1, which was also the score I showed to Einojuhani Rautavaara when I asked to become his student.

The idea of writing a Horn Concerto has been in my mind since those distant days. As is mostly the case to make a project like that happen, a confluence is needed: the right time and the right people. When Michael Haefliger of the Lucerne Festival got in touch in 2021 and asked if I could write a concerto for Stefan Dohr, I knew that this was the moment for which I had been waiting. I have long admired Stefan’s artistry, both from the podium and in the audience, and I knew that his track record performing and commissioning new works for the instrument was second to none.

The actual composition process took eighteen months, but some of the sketches are much older material, ideas that finally found a home in this project.

Memories of the famous horn moments in the repertoire seemed to repeatedly invade my imagination. I first tried to resist, but ultimately decided to embrace them and use them as material. In some cases, I embedded a well-known piece into my own harmonic world, such as Mozart’s Second Horn Concerto in the first movement, or the opening solo of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony in the second movement. In the finished Concerto, those moments appear and disappear like fish coming to the surface to catch an insect before diving to the depths of the sea again: fleeting moments, almost too short to register.

The first movement starts with a motif, or theme (or Leitmotiv as in Wagner), that appears several times throughout the piece, here played on natural horn (not using the valves) against a synthetic overtone harmony. After a short interlude of descending string texture, a recitativo section begins: the solo horn in dialogue with the wind instruments. After a short moment of the soloist simultaneously playing and singing the Leitmotiv, an accelerando section leads to faster music: my homage to Mozart (and his friend, horn player Ignaz Leutgeb, without whom the horn repertoire would be so much poorer). The music calms gradually. At the end of the movement, the theme is heard again, this time played by piccolo and English Horn.

The second movement is essentially an Adagio: slow, singing music that oscillates between calm and more agitated phases. The initial horn monologue against a heavily pulsing string accompaniment metamorphoses into a distant memory of the famous solo in the opening of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. (That was the symphony I conducted in my diploma concert at the ripe age of 21). The long horn line is interrupted by two suddenly more-dramatic orchestra interludes before the movement ends with echoes of the Leitmotiv.

The third movement opens with music that is related to the final section of the first movement, this time a mirror image: a gradual process from calm to playful, sometimes feverish, activity.

A scherzando orchestra interlude in 12/8 meter leads to the main material of the movement, virtuosic horn solos accompanied by string rhythms from the previous interlude. The harmony is partly based on the “mystic chord” used by Scriabin in Prometheus. The motif/theme returns against slow, microtonally sinking strings.

A playful solo section follows, where the unique hand-stopping technique of the horn is used to produce rapid changes of tone color. The 12/8 music returns: this time the solo horn forms a trio with the orchestra horns, flashbacks of Eroica. The Leitmotiv is heard again, played by tutti orchestra. The hand-stopping music reappears with more active orchestra texture. A new, singing theme is introduced. Then, there is another orchestra interlude with accelerando to a very fast tempo.

Finally, a virtuosic coda where the horn is pushed to the very limits of what is physically possible. Somehow, when writing the final minutes of the concerto, I was taken straight back to my childhood and teen years. Very powerful nostalgia, but not of the sad kind…more like a pleasant dream.