von Christophe Sturzenegger

Am 2. und 3. März 2024 fand der zweite Kongress des Westschweizer Hornistenverbandes statt. Eine tolle Veranstaltung, von der wir hier einige bemerkenswerte Elemente finden!150 Schüler, davon die Hälfte unter 16 Jahre alt, aus drei Ländern (Schweiz, Frankreich, Belgien) und über 20 verschiedenen Musikschulen. Fernseh- und Radiosendungen, Konferenzen…. Das Konzert von Reinhold Glière, aufgeführt von Matias Piñeira und begleitet vom Orchester des Genfer Konservatoriums (Dirigent: Gabor Takacs), war ein Triumph. Die 150 angemeldeten Hornisten konnten außerdem Workshops zu den Themen Jagdhorn, Alphorn, Physiotherapie, Meisterkurse für Jung und Alt und Instrumentenbau besuchen. Auch die anderen Konzerte fanden großen Anklang, insbesondere das der Hornisten der regionalen Orchester sowie zwei Werke der Genfer Komponisten Alexandre Mastrangelo und Christophe Sturzenegger. Beim Abschlusskonzert standen fast 200 Hornisten auf der Bühne! Dieses großartige Wochenende rund um das Horn wurde von einem ganzen Team orchestriert, darunter Pierre Burnet, Hornprofessor am Genfer Musikkonservatorium. Wir freuen uns auf den 3. Kongress im Jahr 2026! Bleiben Sie dran www.acsr-cor.com.

by Layne Anspach

Hello musicians!

Johannes Matthias Sperger’s Cassation No. 3 will be the focus of this month’s Chamber Music Corner. Sperger (1750-1812), a double bassist and composer, was born in Feldsberg (now Valtice), Czechia in 1750. His earliest training was from an organist in Feldsberg, but he went on to study with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger in Vienna. Considered a leading double bass player of his day, Sperger was employed in a number of courts but worked longest at the court in Ludwigslust from 1789 until his death in 1812.

Sperger’s compositional output is extensive, including 45 symphonies, 18 double bass concerti, and many chamber works. His Cassation No. 3 is also cataloged as Divertimento in D Major, M.C II:21. The work is for horn, viola, and double bass, and it is closely related to the trio for flute, viola, and double bass, M.C II:20.

The work is in four movements. The first, Moderato, rotates the primary melody between each instrument in a typical classical style. There are sixteenth note runs that add flourishes to the movement as well. Andante poco adagio begins with a horn melody which is passed to the viola. The double bass assumes the melody in the middle section before the opening material returns once more to close the movement.

The third movement, Menuett and Trio, begins with the viola leading the melody, then passing it to the horn with the bass continually supporting. The roles in the first trio are reversed as the horn takes the lead first followed by the viola. After a return to the menuett, a second trio features the bass (no doubt showing off Sperger’s own skill). The final movement, Andante con variazioni and Allegro, starts with the melody in the horn before the viola takes over in the first variation. Not surprisingly, in the second variation the bass takes over the melodic presentation. The third variation sees the return of the theme, carried by the horn, supported by active triplets in the viola. The work ends with the Allegro in compound meter and is propelled by the viola and bass with the horn as the supportive participant.

The reference recording features hornist Ab Koster on the album Rarities for Double Bass (Christophorus, 2007).

Northwest Horn Symposium

by Martin King

The 2024 Northwest Horn Symposium was held April 12-14, 2024, at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, hosted by Assistant Professor of Horn Martin D. King. This is the first time that WSU has hosted a regional symposium. The symposium welcomed featured artists Bernhard Scully, Charles “Skip” Snead, and the US Army Brass Quintet. Over 100 high school students, university students, avocational players, and professional players from around the region attended the event, and we hosted eight vendors as well. We hosted a regional artist recital, presentations on everything from jazz horn to the transition from natural horn to valve horn, a mass ensemble, and an after-concert featuring a jazz jam session coordinated by Mike Simpson. There was a high school solo competition, university solo competition, orchestral mock audition, and a quartet competition. The WSU Horn Ensemble and the Central Washington University Horn Ensemble both performed at this event.

by Ian Zook

Volume 15—Adriaan van Woudenberg

This issue of Horn on Record will explore an often overlooked and vitally important piece of chamber music, the Wind Quintet, Op. 26 by Arnold Schoenberg, recorded by Dutch hornist Adriaan van Woudenberg and the Danzi Quintet. Schoenberg composed his Quintet in August 1924, and it was premiered the following month. This recording of van Woudenberg was released by Philips in 1961. 

Adriaan van Woudenberg (b. 1925) was the solo horn of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam from 1944-1985. His studies were all with Richard Sell, then solo horn of Concertgebouw, and van Woudenberg was appointed as second horn in the orchestra before his final exams were completed at the Conservatory. Once he moved to the solo horn role after Sell, van Woudenberg played under Willem Mengelberg, Eduard van Beinum, and Bernard Haitink during their tenures as chief conductors. Across his career he taught at the Sweelinck, Tilburg, and Maastricht Conservatories, and also the Musikhochshule in Trossigen, Germany.

Van Woudenberg was also a longtime member of the Danzi Wind Quintet, founded in 1956 by flutist Frans Vester. This quintet was formed specifically to perform the Dutch premiere of Schoenberg’s Wind Quintet in 1958 at the Holland Festival–the culmination of 107 rehearsals since the quintet’s inception! Known for their expertise in contemporary music, van Woundenberg’s Danzi Quintet subsequently toured Italy, Germany, Russia, and America, and performed at the World Exhibition in Montréal, Canada, and had works written for them by Rob de Bois, Ton de Leeuw, Misha Mengelberg, Peter Schat, Josef Tal, and Jan van Vlijmen.

The International Horn Society recognized Adriaan van Woudenberg’s influence at the Symposuim in London in 2014, making him an Honorary Member.

Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg was a dynamic figure in 20th century music history. He transitioned from an early compositional career saturated in the post-Romantic harmonic style with works like Verklärte Nacht (1899) and Guerrelieder (1913) to his methods aimed at the democratizing of the tonal system through atonalism. In the early 1920s, Schoenberg introduced his “twelve-tone row” system, where a set of the twelve discreet pitches of the chromatic scale serve as the “key” of the work and can be written successively as a melody or motif and simultaneously organized harmonically. This tone row can be further manipulated from its original form by means of transposition, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion.

After introducing this tonal landscape in his Piano Suite, Op. 25 in 1925, Schoenberg launched into the first large scale work using the dodecaphonic method with his Wind Quintet, Op. 26. This is a groundbreaking work for both woodwind quintet and chamber ensemble writing, and it is extremely difficult in every possible respect for all performers. Schoenberg not only uses a unique tonal language, he also compositionally structures “developing variation” throughout: these brief motivic cells transform through intermixing degrees of rhythmic, melodic, or pitch contour and can do so in rapid succession and across an expanded scale. This can be challenging to listeners as there are few concrete “tunes” to grasp on initial hearings; however, repeated study and score review are illuminating exercises. Thankfully, performers benefit from Schoenberg’s use of notating primary and secondary voices with indications of Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme in the score!

With the amount of rehearsal the Danzi Quintet clearly invested in their pursuit of this quintet, we are the beneficiaries of a recording that not only pulls attention to the needed prevailing voices, but offers nuance of phrase, impeccable intonation, and masterful interplay of instrumental timbre. Van Woudenberg’s performance in this recording is truly inspiring—he deftly covers the entire range of the horn, dances through wicked chromatic figurations, and can bury his tone within the woodwind texture or proclaim his presence authoritatively, often in consequent musical moments.

Our listening begins with the closing moments of the first movement, where van Woudenberg zips through fiendish passagework, cycling through the tone row (E♭, G, A, B, C♯, C, B♭, D, E, F♯, A♭, F) with practiced ease and efficiency. The flute recapitulates the movement’s opening motive, and van Woudenberg’s gentle melodic tone and pin-point threading of large interval leaps bring the movement to a close:

The second movement, labelled scherzando, demonstrates the Danzi Quintet’s wonderful interplay of sound and texture, weaving their lines and articulations to create a dance-like feel, even if the tonal language doesn’t easily cooperate. Van Woudenberg binds everything together, carrying an almost Mahlerian scherzo tune, with a few added high-octane outbursts:

The etwas fliessender section of the third movement intertwines a supple triplet figure through the winds, with the horn taking some beautiful lines. The music then dissolves into a quirky waltz:

Our last excerpt is the ending of the fourth movement, rondo, in which van Woudenberg unleashes his mighty orchestral sound, honed for the Concertgebouw, and the ensemble bursts with energy to the final cadence:

If you are curious to discover this fascinating chamber work by Arnold Schoenberg, then I urge you to go to Discogs and put your own copy on the turntable! The dedication of the Danzi Quintet to bring this piece to life is remarkable and a grand testament to their desire to invest in the musical creativity of Schoenberg’s dodecaphony. Thank you for reading Horn on Record!