by Caiti Beth McKinney
Happy New Year! To start 2026 off on the right note, this month I want to introduce you to a composer who has only come to my attention in the last year: Fernande Decruck (1896-1954). Decruck was a French composer active during the first half of the 20th century who composed an astonishing number of pieces, over 280, despite living only to age 57. Her works covered nearly every musical genre, from orchestral to chamber and solo music. While Decruck is most remembered for her sonata for saxophone, she lavished attention on the horn in several of her compositions.
One of my favorite Decruck works is her double concerto for horn and trumpet, Heroic Poem (Poème héroïque pour trompette solo en ut, cor solo en fa et orchestre). Completed just after the end of World War II, the piece is firmly in the Neoromantic style that had become so popular by this time. The heroics of the music’s namesake are certainly present in the first movement in the form of dramatic and triumphant leaping figures in both the horn and trumpet; however, the second movement is where I believe Decruck truly shines. Dark and rumbling strings underscore lyrical lines in the two solo brass; the whole movement is haunting and melancholy, moving the listener into feelings of grief. This is exhibited no more poignantly than at the end of the movement, where unaccompanied solo horn descends into a final lament, closing the section on a low, mournful concert F. The hero of the third movement is changed by the journey of the second; their bravado has matured, and, while slightly subdued, is no less triumphant. Complex (and very French) skipping and leaping motifs resound in the solo parts, culminating in another concert F in the horn to end the work—though three octaves higher this time!
Heroic Poem is certainly not the only Decruck work to feature the horn, though it is the only one professionally recorded thus far (an outstanding performance with soloists Amy McCabe and Leelanee Sterrett with conductor Matthew Aubin and the Jackson Symphony). Decruck also composed a horn quartet, a short work for horn and piano titled Pastorale Triste, and a fascinating wind quintet with piano Chant Lyrique. Many of her manuscripts are available for digital perusal here thanks to the tireless work of Matthew Aubin and his endeavors to restore Decruck’s compositions from the attic back to the concert hall.