Unique Volunteer Opportunity: Paper Archivist
The IHS is looking for our next Paper Archivist! Our archives are housed at the Eastman School of Music, but you don't need to be geographically located near there to hold this position. We are grateful to Peggy Moran for her years of service in this role, and her gracious offer to help with the transition to answer questions and guide our new archivist through the process.
The official description of this role states:
- (The Archivist is) responsible for maintenance-level processing of all archival materials and for administering the Records Management Policy.
- (The Archivist is) appointed by the Advisory Council (AC) according to IHS Hiring Policies, to solicit, receive, weed, process, and transport materials according to the current IHS Records Management Policy. The Archivist may also, at his or her discretion, recommend changes to this Policy, which must be approved by the IHS AC, and which, after approval, will be communicated to the Archive location Head of Special Collections. The Archivist will report annually to the IHS AC, with a copy of same to the Head of Special Collections.
- Once materials have been weeded and transported to the Archive location, the Head of Special Collections (or designee) will assume full responsibility for oversight of the IHS Archive, including any additional maintenance-level processing of all archival materials, administering the IHS Records Management Policy, and ensuring compliance with all provisions of the current agreement as enacted, together with any revisions that may be effected at any time.
If you have any questions, please ask! Interested? Send inquiries and/or a resume and cover letter to exec-director@hornsociety.org by June 15, 2023.
A Memorable Encounter with the Past
by Johannes Dengler
I recently had the great pleasure of presenting the instrument of my famous predecessor, Franz Strauss, with my colleague Milena Viotti. The Bavarian State Orchestra is celebrating its 500th anniversary this year, and for this occasion a number of short videos relating to the history of our orchestra have been produced. For 30 years now, I have been able to play as a solo horn player in the same chair in the Bavarian State Opera, and so for me, my first encounter with this original instrument triggered a memorable and impressive journey into the past, and I want to tell you about it.
Much has been handed down, researched, and published about the personality of Franz Strauss and his position and importance in music history; I can't contribute anything new in terms of content. But if you approach the instrument purely phenomenologically in the present, there is still a lot to say.
On the one hand, the craftsmanship is striking. Every screw, every small part does not come from perfect industrial mass production, as it does today, but from small editions that were mostly made by hand and which had a much greater spread in quality. I can only imagine that the raw materials market, e.g. for brass, was completely different in 1867 than it is today. The special form of the instrument, with a long cylindrical portion and a very conical bell, can also be ascribed with high probability to a collaboration between the master builder Ottensteiner and Franz Strauss. The underlying artistry of everyone involved, to achieve the best result on all levels with few attempts and little experience, seems remarkable to me. Certainly it was not possible to simply provide many identically constructed horns in tried-and-tested versions from which to choose, as is the case today.
In many respects, this horn is a starting point, and the repertoire premiered with it (e.g. Rheingold in 1869, Walküre in 1870, and Meistersinger in 1868), was not even known at the time it was made. Personally, I would even go so far and not rule out that the experience with the premiere of Tristan in 1865, two years before the Ottensteiner Horn was made, could have persuaded Franz Strauss to move from the basic tuning in F to a B-flat horn. Tristan on the 3-valve Bb horn seems almost impossible to me, as there are many muted single tones in legato passages that can‘t be played well. In doing so, he consciously violated the general convention of playing an F horn and chose his individual path, as we know from reports, against considerable resistance and hostility from his colleagues and some conductors.
From the anecdotes about Franz Strauss at that time, one can understand on the one hand his great artistic sensibility and on the other a high pressure to perfection. When I only played a few notes on the razor-sharp mouthpiece and saw in the service lists that Franz Strauss played these Wagnerian works alone, without the possibility of changing or assistants, with countless rehearsals in the authoritarian times of the era, I suddenly recalled my own early days in our orchestra. I remember the associated normal initial overstrain with this repertoire vividly. However, I was able to fall back on all the experiences of my colleagues and a systematic training. Franz Strauss had to fight for all this with an unimaginable talent.
From these circumstances, the inner rejection that Franz Strauss is said to have had towards Wagner is revealed to me personally as immediately and physically plausible. I'm really thinking in terms of my own experiences with world premieres today.
The shape of the instrument and the nature of the mouthpiece (very large bore, narrow inner width and sharp edge) seem to correlate with Franz Strauss' efforts at the time to find the tonal "sweet spot" of the National Theater in Munich. The Munich theater, with its more than 2000 seats, was gigantic in that era when the city had about 150,000 inhabitants. As one can gather from the admiring testimonies of his contemporaries up to and including Richard Wagner, he seems to have succeeded with this horn, producing an open, vocal phrasing style of playing of natural beauty, which was able to project into the entire theater. In order to achieve this goal, he went his own way by choosing the basic tuning in B flat. This was partly due to his strong personality, which did not shy away from conflict, but also partly to a scrupulous and sensitive reaction to the excessive demands of the new repertoire.
Franz Strauss' individual style as a horn player has become a living and formative history in the work and horn parts of his son Richard where we find the spiritual ideal of the horn sound with which Richard Strauss himself grew up. This style was shaped by the architectural and acoustic conditions of the Munich National Theater as well as by the examination and the necessary adaptation to the challenges of the new repertoire.
Finally, I would like to mention one more point: had it not been for such a capable, gifted, and ultimately courageous personality as Franz Strauss on the first horn of the Royal Court Opera in Munich, Richard Wagner's way of writing for the horn would probably have not been the same, namely from Tristan where Wagner worked together with Franz to write the horn part. From that point, Wagner began writing differently for horn. Before that, it would have been unthinkable to make the horn a full, even central element of his opera compositions. The history of our instrument and the subsequent horn parts depend directly on this one unique personality.
Today, for horn players, all of this can still be taken as an inspiring example. The "right" sound and the right dynamics in a certain hall and our own individual way of playing should determine our choice of instrument and mouthpiece and drive our will to choose the best setup without too much consideration for the general conventions of our time. Moreover, this can inspire us to work together with instrument makers on the further development of our horns. It is time now to carry the fire further into the future, and to convince future composers and the listening public of the versatility and expressiveness of our instrument.
TWO HORNS ON STAGE
A Conversation with Bedřich Tylšar
by Zdeněk Divoký
We are sitting in a cozy cafe in Prague having a chat with Bedřich Tylšar (b. 1939), Czech horn player and pedagogue. Between the years 1965 and 2000, he and his brother Zdeněk (1945-2006) performed as a horn duo in famous concert halls around the world.
The list of concertos for two horns that they recorded (LPs and CDs) still remains exclusive and unique. Thanks to the two brothers, Czech classical horn pieces by Rosetti, Fiala, Rejcha, and Pokorny, together with those of world-renowned composers (Telemann, Vivaldi, L. Mozart, J. Haydn), became widely known.
I can remember listening to the first recording of the Vivaldi, Telemann, and Haydn double concertos by the Tylšar brothers (published on the Supraphon label), around 1973. I was a conservatory student, and the recording bewitched me on the spot; the easy subtlety of first horn by Zdeněk Tylšar, together with the agile distinctness of second horn by Bedřich, connected into a horn harmony of phenomenal delicacy.
At that time, I made my personal decision: I wanted to reach this ideal, to achieve the interpretations (by then members of the Czech Philharmonic), and above all, to master the horn.
Today we are talking together, and I ask:
ZD: You were two brothers, playing the same instrument and studying with the same teacher, Prof. František Šolc at the Janáček Music Academy in Brno, and later you both became members of the Czech Philharmonic orchestra. The connection is obvious; nevertheless, how did you begin performing double concertos?
BT: Sometime around 1962, I visited a music shop in Brussels, Belgium. Apart from sheet music, they also offered the possibility of listening to recordings. Suddenly, I heard two horns—I believe it was Haydn. I do not remember who was playing, but it was beautiful. I realized that these instruments blend together perfectly thanks to the abundance of harmonic overtones, and I decided to pursue this idea. I began to explore both Czech and foreign archives, contacted many colleagues (e.g., Edmond Leloir), and gathered the music. The entire 18th century proved to be very rich in this genre. The first performance with my brother was in Olomouc in 1964, and we played the Concerto in E-flat by Antonio Rossler-Rosetti.
ZD: The music in baroque and classical double concertos is sometimes very demanding from the technical point of view. Considering the fact that the original interpreters were playing on natural or inventions horns, it is obvious that their technique must have been excellent.
BT: Agreed. Whether we mention Houdek and Hampel, the representatives of baroque clarino style in Dresden (Germany), or later Palsa and Thürrschmid, then Nagel and Zwierzina in Oettingen-Wallerstein, the quality of their playing must certainly have been a great inspiration for the composers.
ZD: I would like to mention another early classical Czech composer, famous in Italy in the second half of 18th century, Josef Mysliveček (Mysliweczek, 1737-1781). He did not compose a horn concerto, but his sparkling Aria in Dis for coloratura soprano and horn with orchestra is a perfect example of the contemporary virtuoso style. Recently, I saw a new Czech film, Il Boemo, a biographical movie about Mysliveček, and this wonderful aria from the opera Bellerofonte is used there. Mysliveček’s compositions vary between baroque grandness and classical high spirit, resulting in a deep sense of beauty.
BT: Definitely. Mysliveček studied composition with František Václav Habermann (1706-1783), who was then a recognized composer. He composed horn parts in the German baroque style, similar to Bach, Händel, or Zelenka. Mysliveček adapted this style and added his own ideas.
ZD: Looking at old photos from your first concerts (around 1970), I can see that you and your brother both played Alexander 103 horns. This was not common in Czechoslovakia at that time, was it?
BT: Certainly not. The first generations of Czech horn players after WWII played instruments made by Knopf, Kruspe, or Josef Lídl. Luckily, during my time in Germany (two years as solo horn with the Munich Philharmonic, 1967 – 69), I met in person with Anton Alexander, executive of the Alexander company in Mainz. Soon after, we started to play the 103 models. Mr. Alexander often came to our concerts in Germany. I still highly value his friendship.
ZD: I would also like to remember your brother Zdeněk, my colleague in the Czech Philharmonic for more than 30 years. For me, he was the ideal of talent, energy, and musicality. When I entered the Czech Philharmonic in 1979, he was playing solo horn, and I started at the position of third horn.
At that time (1970-2000), we experienced an intense boom of recording, first LPs, later CDs. It was a worldwide trend, and the number of recording labels was huge. We recorded almost everything: sets of Mahler, Dvořák, numerous concertos, and operas. Then, it was quite normal to play seven hours a day: a three-and-a-half-hour rehearsal in the morning, a recording in the afternoon. Quite often, we even recorded on concert days, since we performed three concerts per week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Zdeněk Tylšar was able to play everything without alternation, always performing everything by himself. Of course, apart from the orchestra, he had many personal solo projects, and double concerto and chamber ensemble performances. We can say, without exaggeration, that in his forty-year career he played virtually from morning until night.
BT: I remember I often had to deal with the paperwork on his behalf when several projects or foreign trips overlapped.
ZD: It has been a great pleasure to have this interview with you.
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Bedřich Tylšar (b. 1939), Czech horn player and pedagogue
"The brothers Bedrich and Zdenek Tylsar are the leading exponents of a long Czech tradition of French horn-playing. Both graduated from the Janáček Academy of Musical Arts and after winning prizes in prestigious competitions in Europe became members of the acclaimed Czech Philharmonic Orchestra."
Happy Holidays from Radegundis Feitosa
Interview - Radegundis Taveres, IHS 49 Host
Kristina Mascher-Turner: The horn seems to be a popular instrument in Brazil. Can you tell us about how the horn tradition in your country began? Were there well-known teachers or performers who came over and got things started, for instance?
Radegundis Feitosa: The French horn started to become a more popular instrument especially in the last decades. Although the first mentions of the French horn in Brazil date from the early 18th Century, the instrument was better known in the orchestral/chamber music world at this time and didn’t become so popular for the general population at first. During the late 19th Century and early 20th century, in comparison to the Trombone and the Trumpet, for example, the French horn was not regularly used in Brazilian popular music ensembles. Many wind ensembles/military bands used to have a Saxhorn in E flat instead of a French Horn. These facts probably made a huge difference especially in the first part of the 20th century, when Trombones and Trumpet became more popular instruments. It started to change especially in the 1980s along with the developing and creation of new orchestras and undergraduate degree courses in public universities. At the same time, classical music festivals were receiving more resources and becoming bigger, and new festivals all over the country were being created. It stimulated more people to choose the horn as their instrument and to explore its possibilities. Nowadays, the horn is more established in Brazil not only in the Orchestral and chamber music formations but also in wind ensembles and military bands. It’s possible to hear some individual initiatives to have the instrument in choro, frevo, samba and other Brazilian music formations, as much as in big bands.
In the last few decades, we’ve had horn players coming from many parts of the world to teach and play the instrument in Brazil, such as Daniel Havens (USA) and Zdenek Svab (Czech Republic) that taught many of the principal horn players in Brazil now. Especially during the 1980s and the 1990s, many Brazilian horn players went to study abroad as well, particularly in the USA and Europe. This had a big influence on horn playing in Brazil.
Pedagogy Column—Find Your Voice
by Arkady Shilkloper
I played in orchestras for twelve years in Moscow, and while that was a great experience, it made me want to find my own unique voice in music and in horn playing. I mostly now play music that I write or improvise—even if I’m playing a piece someone else wrote for me, I’ll put my own stamp on it.
Every horn player can find his or her own voice on the instrument. I like to have students get away from printed music, but of course telling a student to just start improvising is very unhelpful. A good starting point is to imitate, on the horn, sounds that you hear in the real world. It could be whale sounds, or car alarm sounds, or sheep, dogs, cats, wolves, trucks, screams, or anything else. The point is to make your horn sound like something else instead of trying to play notes that someone else wrote.
Another great exercise is to imitate the intonation of human speech. By “intonation” I don’t mean playing in tune, but rather the ups and downs we make with our voice as we speak. For instance, you might say, “I learned something interesting at school today.” When I say that sentence, my voice goes a little higher on the words “interesting” and “school.” Also, there is a rhythm to the words: they don’t all come out as even eighth notes—not even close. You can use pitch and rhythm on the horn to imitate that sentence or any other sentence. Start by saying what you want. Next: repeat it with your voice, but without words, just with rhythmic pitches. Now play it on your horn, in the same way. This is a way to give yourself permission to just play, without playing something that someone told you to play!
There is an interesting practice called sound painting developed by Walter Thompson. It comprises a large set of hand gestures that the Soundpainter (who is the composer/conductor) gives to the players. You can look at the gestures on the website or develop your own. Get into a group of players who want to improvise, and develop gestures for long note, short note, high note, low note, do something different, faster, slower, and so on. The gestures, in other words, give a context and direction to the players, which is easier than just making music up from scratch.
As you do this in a group, start responding to what each other is playing. And start paying attention to what you are playing. What kinds of musical gestures come out of your bell? What kinds of sounds? You are developing your own musical voice!
You can also work on your body’s sense of rhythm. Think of a slower tempo in 4/4 time. Sit in a chair and tap beat 1 with your left foot. Then add beats 1 and 3 with your right. When you can do that, use your left hand to tap quarter notes on your left knee. When you can do all three of these things together, add eighth notes in your right hand on your right knee. It’s hard, but you are learning to coordinate your body according to its sense of rhythm.
As you develop your body’s sense of rhythm, you can apply that sense to the music you improvise. You are becoming more and more coordinated: experiencing rhythm will become a full-body experience. The music that comes out of your bell can be informed by that sense of rhythm, so that you aren’t playing random notes at random times, but notes that flow with your own rhythmic logic.
At this point, you will be finding your musical voice. And all of this work will make you a better horn player, too, no matter what kind of music you are playing.
Röntgen: Aus Jotunheim
Röntgen: Aus Jotunheim
door Paul van Zelm
Rond het jaar 2000 speelde ik enkele seizoenen lang met de hoboist Maarten Karres en zijn vrouw Ariane een prachtig programma, rondom de vriendschap tussen Julius Röntgen en Edvard Grieg. Gespeeld werden de hobosonate van Röntgen, enkele liederen en pianowerken van Grieg, waaronder het stuk „Sehnsucht nach Julius“, opgedragen aan Röntgen (later “Resignation“ opus 73 nr. 1). Als hoofdwerk voor de hoorn speelde ik de suite Aus Jotunheim voor hoorn en piano, een vijfdelig werk, baserend op noorse volksmuziek. Om de genoemde vriendschap tussen Grieg en Röntgen toe te lichten, lazen we brieven en fragmenten uit een biografie voor.
De beiden komponisten maakten in 1875 kennis in Leipzig. Toen Grieg in 1883 Amsterdam bezocht, nodigde Röntgen hem bij zich thuis uit om te verblijven. Het plan was, dat Grieg 1 dag zou blijven. Grieg had Röntgen geschreven: „ik verheug me er bijzonder op, u en uw vrouw weer te ontmoeten. Zorg er altublieft voor, dat die ene dag 48 uur duurt!“ Het liep anders: Grieg zou een hele maand bij Röntgen blijven. Sindsdien waren de beiden Komponisten door een warme vriendschap verbonden, tot Griegs dood in 1907.
In de jaren daarna zou Röntgen maar liefst 14 keer naar Noorwegen reizen om Grieg te bezoeken, meestal in de zomer. Er werden dan dagenlange trektochten door het gebergte „Jotunheimen“ ondernomen, telkens ook met het doel, Noorse volksliederen te horen en deze op papier te zetten. Röntgen schreef hierover: „Jotunheim is een wereld voor zich, slechts in de zomer door herders bewoond. Met Grieg samen ging de reis per paardenkar en een roeiboot over het Sognefjord naar Skjolden. Het was een warme namiddag in augustus en we lieten, liggend op hooizakken, het grootse landschap aan ons voorbijtrekken.“ Later schreef Franz Beyer, vriend en reisgenoot van Röntgen, het volgende: „Na de overnachting in een berghut mochten we mee de wei op om de koeien te melken. Ook daarbij werden natuurlijk de Noorse volksliederen gezongen en deze werden nog tijdens het zingen, met het notenpapier op de rug van de koe liggend, quasi „vers van de koe“ opgeschreven!“ Uit deze liederen en melodieën is in 1892 de Suite „Aus Jotunheim“ ontstaan. Aanvankelijk voor viool en piano, als geschenk voor het 25 jarig huwelijk van Grieg en zijn vrouw Nina. In 1901 was de versie voor hoorn en piano, voor de bekende weense hoornist Luis Savart geschreven. Voor Savart schreef Röntgen nog een werk: Variationen und Finale über „Sankt Nepomuk“.
In de bovengenoemde concerten speelde ik het stuk uit het manuscript, dat zich tegenwoordig in het Nederlands Muziek Instituut in Den Haag bevindt.
In 2003 verscheen een gedrukte versie van de hand van John Smit (die heel toevallig ook mijn eerste hoornleraar was). Toen ik in de herfst van 2022 een aantal korte video ́s opnam om op het internet te publiceren, was het voor mij een logische keuze om enkele delen van de Jotunheim Suite op te nemen: in zijn genre (hoogromantiek) is het stuk een waardevolle aanvulling op ons repetoire.
Röntgen’s Aus Jotunheim
by Paul van Zelm
For several seasons around the year 2000, I played a beautiful program with the oboist Maarten Karres and his wife Ariane, based on the friendship between Julius Röntgen and Edvard Grieg. We played Röntgen's oboe sonata, several songs, and some piano works by Grieg, including the piece Sehnsucht nach Julius, dedicated to Röntgen (later called Resignation op. 73 no. 1). As the main work for horn, I played the suite Aus Jotunheim for horn and piano, a five-part work based on Norwegian folk music. To explain the friendship between Grieg and Röntgen, we read aloud letters and fragments from a biography.
The two composers met in Leipzig in 1875. When Grieg visited Amsterdam in 1883, Röntgen invited him to stay with him. The plan was for Grieg to stay for one day, but Grieg wrote to Röntgen: "I am looking forward to seeing you and your wife again. Please make sure that this one day lasts 48 hours!" Things went differently, and Grieg ended up staying with Röntgen for a whole month. From that point, the two composers were connected by a warm friendship until Grieg's death in 1907.
In the years that followed, Röntgen would travel to Norway to visit Grieg no fewer than 14 times, usually in the summer. They undertook days-long hikes in the Jotunheimen mountains, always using the occasions to listen to Norwegian folk songs and commit them to paper. Röntgen wrote about this: "Jotunheim is a world of its own, inhabited only by shepherds in the summer. The journey with Grieg was by horse-drawn carriage and rowboat across the Sognefjord to Skjolden. These were warm afternoons in August, and lying on hay bales, we let the grand landscape pass us by." Later, Franz Beyer, a friend and traveling companion of Röntgen, wrote: "After spending the night in a mountain hut, we were allowed to go to the meadow to milk cows. Naturally, the Norwegian folk songs were sung during this activity, transcribed holding the manuscript paper on the backs of the animals, so they were 'almost fresh from the cow!'"
From these songs and melodies, the Suite "Aus Jotunheim" was created in 1892, initially for violin and piano as a gift for Grieg and his wife Nina's 25th wedding anniversary. In 1901, the version for horn and piano was written for the well-known Viennese hornist Luis Savart. Röntgen also wrote another work for Savart: Variations and Finale on Sankt Nepomuk.
In the concerts previously mentioned, I played the piece from the manuscript, which is currently located at the Dutch Music Institute in The Hague.
In 2003, a printed version was released by John Smit (who happened to be my first horn teacher). When I recorded a number of short videos to publish on the internet in the fall of 2022, it was a logical choice for me to include some parts of the Jotunheim Suite: in its genre (high Romanticism), the piece is a valuable addition to our repertoire.
