Giovanni Punto (aka Jan Václav Stich, Johann Wenzel Stich) was a virtuoso hornist (cor basse) who traveled most of Europe performing as a soloist and court musician. He composed many original works to display his unique virtuosity. Also an excellent violin player, Punto held positions in several orchestras as concertmaster.

Punto was born Jan Václav Stich in Zehušice, Bohemia, the son of a serf on the estate of Count Joseph Johann von Thun. He was taught singing, violin, and horn while growing up. Count Thun then sent him to study with Joseph Matiegka in Prague, Jan Schindelarz in Munich, and A. J. Hampel in Dresden. From Hampel, he learned hand-stopping technique, which he later improved and extended.

Stich returned to the rural estate of Count Thun and served for four years, but he acquired a reputation as a troublemaker. At the age of 20, he and four friends left the estate to find a better life. The Count sent soldiers after them with orders to knock out Stich's front teeth so he couldn't play horn again, but the runaways eluded the soldiers and escaped into the Holy Roman Empire, where Stich Italianized his name and became Giovanni Punto.

Punto played with the orchestra of the Prince of Hechingen, Germany, then in the Mainz court orchestra, and then toured Europe and England as a soloist. Charles Burney heard him play in Koblenz in 1772 and reported: "The Elector has a good band, in which M. Punto, the celebrated French horn from Bohemia, whose taste and astonishing execution were lately so applauded in London, is a performer."

Punto's use of hand stopping was criticized by some in London, probably because this technique was still novel in London at the time. He returned to London in 1777 and taught the horn players in the private orchestra of King George III. On his last trip to London in 1788, he performed at Gertrude Elizabeth Mara’s vocal concerts in the Pantheon, where he met a friend of Mozart’s, Michael Kelly, who noted the occasion in his own Reminiscences.

During this time, Punto played as soloist and with many court orchestras. He met Mozart in Paris in 1778. Mozart wrote to his father that "Punto plays magnifique" and composed the Sinfonia Concertante K. 297B (now lost) for him and other noted soloists (flute, oboe, and bassoon). Punto apparently contracted with Paris publishers during this visit since from this time forward nearly all his works were published in Paris editions. Previously his works were listed in Breitkopf's catalog.

Punto wanted a permanent position and a chance to conduct. After a short time in the service of the Prince Archbishop of Würzburg in 1781, he became concertmaster for the Comte d’Artois (later to become Charles X of France) in Paris. In 1787 he took a leave of absence to tour as soloist in the Rhineland.

Back in Paris for the start of the French Revolution (1789), he became the conductor of the Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes and stayed for ten years. In 1799, after failing to obtain a position at the newly founded conservatory, he moved to Munich and then to Vienna. In Vienna he met Beethoven, who wrote his Op. 17 Sonata for Horn and Piano for the both of them to premiere on 18 April 1800 at the Burgtheater. The following month they played the work again in Pest, Hungary, where a local music critic commented: "Who is this Beethoven? His name is not known to us. Of course, Punto is very well known."

Punto returned to his homeland in 1801 after 33 years away. He played a concert in the National Theater in Prague. The Prague neue Zeitung reported, "Punto received enthusiastic applause for his concertos because of his unparalleled mastery, and respected musicians said that they had never before heard horn playing like it…In his cadenzas he produced many novel effects, playing two and even three-part chords. It demonstrated again that our fatherland can produce great artistic and musical geniuses.

In 1802, after a short trip to Paris, Punto developed pleurisy, a common illness of wind players of the times. He was ill for five months, and finally passed away on 16 February 1803. He was given a magnificent funeral in the Church of St. Nicholas before thousands of people, so great was his fame at the time. Mozart’s Requiem was performed at the graveside. His tomb was inscribed: "Punto received all the applause. As the Muse of Bohemia applauded him in life, so did she mourn him in death."

Like many soloists of the time, Punto composed pieces that displayed his own talents and virtuosity. He was a cor basse player, using a silver cor solo made for him in 1778 in Paris.  Works composed by and for him show that he was a master of quick arpeggios and stepwise passagework. Punto was acclaimed as a virtuoso of the highest order, considered to be the finest horn player to date, and perhaps of all time.

Among his works are found 16 horn concerti (nos. 9, 12, 13, 15 and 16 lost), a two-horn concerto, a clarinet concerto, a horn sextet, 21 horn quartets, 47 horn trios, and 103 horn duos. Punto also revised Hampel’s horn tutor manual and wrote a book on daily exercises for the horn.

Image from copperplate engraving (1782).

Principal Horn Wiesbaden State Theatre (1895-1899) Solo Hornist at the Vienna State Opera (1899-1906), principal Horn of the Vienna Philharmonic (1906-d.) and professor at the State Academy for Music and Art in Vienna (1917-d.).

He kept close friendships with such notables as: Gustav Mahler, Bruno Walter, Arnold Schönberg, Richard Strauss, Franz Schmidt, and Max Reger.

A collector, editor and publisher of horn ensemble music, Stiegler was a leader in the performance and preservation of hunting horn music. He is also known as one of the professors who made the traditional Viennese F-horn sound world famous.

For more info, see THE HORN CALL
Vol. X, no. 1.

Born in Parkenstein, Bavaria, Franz Strauss had begun his musical career by the age of 7, playing the violin at a wedding dance. After musical study with his uncles Johann Georg Walter and Franz Michael Walter, in which he learned to play the clarinet, guitar, and all brass instruments, Franz Strauss at the age of 15 entered the service of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria as a guitarist. His study on the horn continued, and it was the horn that would become his major instrument. In 1847 he joined the Bavarian court orchestra, a position he held until his retirement in 1889. Franz Strauss also served as a professor at the Academy of Music in Munich from 1871 until 1896 and served from 1875 until 1896 as the conductor of the amateur orchestra "Wilde Gung'l."

Franz Strauss married Elise Seiff, the daughter of a regimental band director, in 1851. While this was a very productive period for him as a composer and performer, it was a tragic period of his life; a 10-month-old son died of tuberculosis, and then cholera took the lives of his wife and young daughter, leaving him a widower at the age of thirty-two. Strauss did not remarry until 1863, at which time he married Josephine Pschorr, a daughter of the wealthy brewer Georg Pschorr. To this union two children would be born, and the elder, Richard Strauss (1864-1949), was destined to become a great composer.

Comments made about Franz Strauss by musical figures of the period reveal both the esteem in which he was held as a performer and something of his character as a man. A musical conservative, Franz Strauss nevertheless performed in the premiere performances of several important operas of Richard Wagner in Munich, including Tristan und Isolde (1865), Die Meistersinger (1868), Das Rheingold (1869), and Die Walküre (1870). The conductor of the first two of these premieres, Hans von Bülow (1830-1894), called Franz Strauss "the Joachim of the horn," and also commented, "The fellow is intolerable, but when he blows his horn you can't be angry with him." Wagner mirrored Bülow's comments, and is quoted as saying, "Strauss is an unbearable, curmudgeonly fellow, but when he plays his horn one can say nothing, for it is so beautiful." Franz Strauss had artistic differences with both of these figures, which make the compliments they paid to him as a performer all the more meaningful. A story recalled by Richard Strauss relates that "Wagner once went past the horn player, who was sitting in his place in moody silence, and said, 'Always gloomy, these horn players,' whereupon my father replied 'We have good reason to be.'" Another story relates a difficult situation between Franz Strauss and Bülow. As the grueling dress rehearsal wore on at 4:00 in the afternoon for the premiere of Die Meistersinger, a rehearsal that had started at 9:00 and which followed 26 other rehearsals for this premiere, all performed without an assistant horn, Franz Strauss could take it no longer. As Ernest Newman relates the story,

Strauss said bluntly that he could play no more. "Then take your pension!" said the irritated Bülow. Strauss picked up his horn, went to the Intendant, and asked for his pension "at the orders of Herr von Bülow." As he was indispensable, [Intendant Karl von] Perfall had to use all his diplomacy to smooth the trouble out.

Beyond his very significant performing career, Franz Strauss also left a legacy as a teacher. Something of his method of teaching is known, as recalled by Franz Strauss's last student Hermann Tuckermann.

The method of Franz Strauss is first of all to emphasize tone quality. He always said: "Only by sustaining tones and by interval studies can you achieve a noble tone." Therefore each lesson began with tonal exercises. With his students he worked through the horn concertos, and the important parts from opera and concert literature. He never accepted a fee for his lessons. His main interest was to impart his experience and skill to hornists.

This concern for tone must certainly have been a significant element of his success on the horn and is certainly reflected in his solo works as well.

Major publications include:

• Fantasie, Op. 2
• Les Adieux
• Nocturno, Op. 7
• Concerto, Op. 8
• Empfindungen am Meere, Op. 12
• Theme and Variations, Op. 13

John Ericson, 2003

For more information, see THE HORN CALL
Vol. XXIX, no. 2

Image from a watercolor by Jos. Resch (1845)

Wipperich was the principal horn in the Vienna Philharmonic (1882-1914) and was professor at the Viennese Music Academy (1895-1917). In his career, he played the Siegfried Call over fifty times.

He helped to make the traditional Viennese F-horn sound world famous, and also published orchestral studies on the symphonic works of Richard Strauss.