James Stagliano was best known for his expressive style of playing and his great high register, and he was the first hornist to record the high baroque music of Steinmetz, Barsanti, Handel, and Telemann. For a time, he held the record for the highest note recorded on a horn, an E-flat (concert A-flat) in the cadenza of a the Mozart Concert Rondo. He was a great lyrical player and truly representative of the style of cantabile playing taught by the fine Italian musicians of that period.

Stagliano was born in Italy in 1912 and emigrated to the US as a child. He first learned piano, then studied horn with his uncle. His father, a trumpeter, also gave him some training. At age 16, Stagliano joined the Detroit Symphony as assistant principal horn to his uncle. He moved to the St. Louis Symphony as principal horn, then in 1936 to Los Angeles, where he played in the Los Angeles Philharmonic until 1944 and became a leading player in the studios, especially Fox Studios. His movie credits include Gone With the Wind and Fantasia.

He left Los Angeles to play in the Cleveland Orchestra under Leinsdorf, but after a year was persuaded by Koussevitzky to join the Boston Symphony, where he stayed for a remarkable reign from 1947 to 1973. He founded Boston Records and, with Sarah Caldwell, the Opera Company of Boston.

Stagliano reached many players through his recordings and broadcasts, although his recorded legacy suffers from primitive recording techniques and little or no splicing. He was a natural player and had few students, but he did have some advice. He recommended standing up while practicing because of the natural support this provides. He felt that the best horn playing has "repose," by which he seemed to mean savoring each tone to the maximum, avoiding any sense of urgency or compulsion to get through. He refused to let a poor performance bother him, and he advocated relaxing when away from the horn.

Stagliano played an Alexander double horn for nearly everything except Bach, for which he used a Kruspe single high F horn. He was elected an IHS Honorary Member in 1981.

Louis Stout was a highly-regarded orchestral player (he never lost an audition), a revered teacher with scores of successful students, and a renowned collector of brass instruments. He had inexhaustible energy and curiosity, learned solfège early, memorized all the horn excerpts, and was always willing to share his expertise and stories. His teachers were Elaine Kessler, Marvin Howe, Mason Jones, and Robert Schultz.

Louis was born in 1924 in Hallisport NY, a village of 75 people with a two-room schoolhouse. There he studied piano with a fine teacher, learned solfège, and developed a love for literature and the arts that led to his vast collection of books, music, recordings, and instruments. He learned to play the trumpet, trombone, violin, clarinet, and guitar in high school, taking up the horn as a high school sophomore.

By the age of ten, Louis was listening to the Chicago Symphony on the radio. He vowed that he would one day play in the orchestra, a vow that he was able to fulfill. During high school, a friend died and the friend's mother asked Louis to play for her son. Many times over the years, Louis would face difficult solo passages with a sense of perspective that made the passages less important than other elements of life.

Louis graduated from high school at age 15 and spent most of the following year playing horn solos with a pianist friend. Then he enrolled at Ithaca (NY) College, where his horn teacher made a major change in his embouchure, which he later said was the best thing for his career even though it was difficult at the time. It was also at college that his teacher insisted he learn the B-flat side of the horn, and he became primarily a player of the B-flat horn. During his junior year, Louis borrowed money to buy his first "professional" horn, a 45-year-old Schmidt that he later said was the best horn he ever owned, and played an audition for first horn in the New Orleans Symphony. He had won the audition and signed the contract when it was discovered that he was not a union member; however, the manager wanted Louis enough to arrange the necessary membership.

In New Orleans, Louis learned to fly an airplane and found his wife, flutist Glennis Metz. The orchestra season was only 20 weeks, so Louis toured with the North Carolina Symphony and played with the Virginia Symphony for additional income. After two years, he went to New York City and joined the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall. In 1950, when a new conductor took over and brought his own players, Louis went back to Ithaca College to finish his bachelor's degree. During his senior year, he taught all the horn students plus other brass students and became a flute major (since he couldn't teach himself), playing his wife's flute.

Ithaca College wanted Louis to continue teaching, but he need more income to support his family and took a job with Kansas City. After four years, with a growing family, Louis was looking for an orchestra with a longer season. He auditioned for Chicago and got a contract as associate principal for a 36-week season and a salary of $100 more per week. He asked to take lessons from Philip Farkas, the first horn and his idol. He was refused but felt that he got his lessons by sitting next to his "teacher" in the orchestra.

Louis played in Chicago for five years (1955-1960) under Reiner, then applied for a position at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. At the audition, he played from memory for two hours and was accepted in spite of not having a master's degree. He taught at Michigan for 28 years, and was known as a demanding teacher, with a thorough and tough regimen, combined with fatherly concern. Even after retirement, he taught privately.

During his Chicago and Michigan years, Louis acquired an amazing collection of instruments, with which he toured the US and Europe in a lecture/demonstration called "The Horn: from the Forest to the Concert Hall." The collection is one of the largest private collections in the world and is now in the Franz Streitweiser's Trumpet and Horn Museum at Schloss Kremsegg in Linz, Austria. Louis's interest in historical horns led to his pioneering use of natural, single B-flat, and descant horns for early music performance.

Louis served on the Fulbright committee, and he and Glennis taught in Taiwan for two years on a Fulbright grant after his retirement. Louis participated in many IHS symposiums, often surrounded by adoring students. He was given the Punto award in 1991 and was elected an Honorary Member in 2005.

A tribute to Louis appears in the October 1989 issue of The Horn Call and a remembrance in the February 2006 issue.

photo courtesy of Holton

Valkenier is recognized as one of the "founding fathers" of horn-playing in the United States. He came from the European (Czech and German) tradition, and his tenure in Boston influenced players and his many students.

Valkenier was born in 1887 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He had piano lessons as a child and started horn with a military clarinetist, who, when Valkenier was 14, sent him to Edward Preus. Preus was a natural horn player from Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) who had played first horn in a German opera company in Rotterdam and settled there. He was a strict taskmaster, sparing with praise, who taught the Czech cantabile tradition.

After two years studying with Preus, Valkenier started playing in a vaudeville theater orchestra. In the summer, he played in a Civil Guard symphonic band with Preus playing first horn, a continuation of his education. His first major professional job was third horn in a symphony orchestra in Gronignen (Netherlands), then a year as first horn in Haarlem. Wanting a better living than he could attain in the Netherlands, he found a job as first horn in the Collegium Musicum in Winterthur, Switzerland. After a year, he saw an advertisement for first horn in Breslau (Silesia, later part of Poland), a larger city, where he won the job and got an excellent grounding in opera.

Valkenier applied for a summer engagement in Bad Kissingen, Germany, where the Konzertverein Orchestra from Vienna played. After he had performed the Aria from the Bach B Minor Mass, Valkenier was offered the permanent first horn position; the orchestra bought out the remainder of his Breslau contract. In Vienna, Valkenier played a lot of Mahler (Mahler had died the year before) as well as chamber music. World War I wreaked havoc with the orchestras in Vienna, so in 1914 Valkenier found a position as first horn with the Berlin State Opera, where he stayed nine years and played under Furtwangler and Richard Strauss, among others.

In 1923, Valkenier, a pacifist and still a Dutch citizen, began to see that conditions in Germany were going to "go wrong" in response to the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. He was friendly with cellist Pablo Casals and considered settling in Barcelona, but finally decided to try America. Valkenier talked with conductors in New York and Chicago, but both had six-month union waiting periods, so he went to Boston (a non-union orchestra until 1942) as first horn of the second horn section.

Valkenier was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1923 to 1950. His first year was under Pierre Monteux, then Koussevitsky took over for 25 years. Around 1950, Valkenier started having trouble with his teeth and so decided to stop playing. He had not liked playing under Koussevitsky, so he stayed long enough to play a season under Charles Munch.

While in Boston, Valkenier delighted in performing chamber music, in both professional engagements and informal pick-up sessions with his colleagues in the BSO or with visiting artists such as Arthur Schnabel, Arnold Schoenberg, and Paul Hindemith. He also played viola and cello parts on his horn.

Valkenier taught many students at New England Conservatory during his BSO tenure and others on Cape Cod during his retirement. He had high standards and insisted on everything being played correctly, but he was also gentle and encouraging, and he was an advisor and confidant to his students, taking a paternal interest in them.

Valkenier started playing on a hand horn, then a Slot single horn. His first double horn was a Kruspe, and the second a Schmidt. Later he used a Kruspe single B-flat horn for operas and a Schmidt single high F horn for high Bach cantatas.

Valkenier was elected an Honorary Member in 1971. A profile of him appears in the October 1983 issue of The Horn Call, a memoriam in the October 1986 issue, and a transcription of an interview in the February 1994 issue. Additional photos of Boston Symphony Orchestra sections appear in the April 1988 issue.

Richard Ifor James was known for his incredible agility and secure high range, but also a broad spectrum of tone color. Philip Jones has said, "What fascinated me about Ifor was his ability to play all over the instrument with enormous panache and great momentum." Ifor left a legacy of recordings, many successful students, and a gift for humor and friendship.

Ifor was born in 1931 in Carlisle, England. His father was a top amateur cornet player and his mother (Ena Mitchell) was a famous soprano. At the age of four, Ifor began playing cornet in a local championship Brass Band. Only three years later he became a "professional," playing trumpet frequently in the theatre, paid in chocolate bars and pens because of child labor laws.

From age 16 to 21, Ifor played football (soccer) for Carlisle United, but at the same time he knew that music was his future. He had always wanted to be an organist, and during this time he became an assistant cathedral organist in Carlisle. When a horn player in the local orchestra became ill, Ifor borrowed the man's horn and played the job. He liked the horn and decided to try it for two years. He studied privately with Aubrey Brain and then won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. He would train for football in the morning, study music afternoons, and play football games on the weekends.

He began his horn career with the Halle Orchestra (after being invited to audition for Sir John Barbarolli) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He also played concertos, recitals, chamber music, and broadcasts and founded the Ifor James Horn Quartet. He loved most playing recitals.

Later Ifor moved to London where he played with many orchestras and chamber groups. He became professor of horn at the Royal Academy of Music, principal horn of the English Chamber Orchestra, and horn player in the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble (1966-1980). With this group he toured the world and made more than 30 recordings. He also recorded many little gems of the horn literature for his Cornucopia project, which also included a lecture series and publishing music for winds.

Ifor became professor for horn at the Royal Northern College (Manchester) and the University of Aberdeen. In 1983 he became professor for horn at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany, where he taught until retirement in 1996. He was one of the world’s most successful teachers, with over 60 players in the profession, among them several who are now following solo careers and over 20 principal horns. He advocated developing the discipline to practice for hours and to love practicing and never be satisfied. "The world owes you nothing, and this profession is not waiting for you. You have to work hard enough to deserve to be in it."

The orchestras with which Ifor James performed are too numerous to name, as are the countries he toured. Many famous composers have written for and dedicated works to him. He was also a composer who has written both for the horn and many other combinations. Ifor said about himself: "I play the horn because I can't sing. If I could sing, I would not play the horn."

To relax while on tour, Ifor drew in black and white. He also enjoyed spending time away from professional life at his house in Norway in summer or his flat in Tenerife in winter.

Ifor played a Hess, a Paxman, a Raoux piston F horn, and finally a Paxman B-flat/A and a piccolo B-flat for extremely high works. He enjoyed experimenting with equipment.

Ifor performed at many horn workshops and was elected an IHS Honorary Member in 2003. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Aberdeen, also in 2003.