by Andrew Lane

How does someone describe the “sound” of the French horn? If you are not a horn player, you might say the horn has a mellow, a rich, or a brassy tone; but if you are a horn player, you might say it has a New York, a Chicago, a Berlin, or a Vienna sound.

In 1990, I joined the horn section of the Florida Symphony Orchestra. The horn section was made up of excellent players who had a clear idea of the sound they wanted to produce. Prior to my audition for the orchestra, I played a Paxman model 20. I liked the instrument very much, but I knew if I wanted a job in the Florida Symphony, I had better change to a Conn 8D because that was the sound they would be looking for in the audition. I had always liked the sound of an 8D, having listened to the great players who used them, but I was never really “wrapped up” in the horn being the deciding factor of the sound I wanted to produce. The FSO section was an established 8D section, so I didn't even consider showing up for the audition without one. Luckily for me, I won the job! Playing in that group really opened my eyes to how a horn section, with a common concept of playing, could work together to create a unity of sound that was...

Nobuaki Fukukawa’s latest release is Mozart’s complete horn concertos. It is well known that Mozart composed these concertos for his great friend, Joseph Leutgeb, and now Fukukawa has recorded these works with his great friend, Masato Suzuki. The recording was made at Suntory Hall in February 2021.

Fukukawa: In a way, this was also a by-product of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was asked whether I had a project I wanted to realize in Suntory Hall, as there had been a cancellation. I decided immediately that I wanted to record Mozart’s horn concertos. This had been a dream of mine for some time.

Astonishingly, Fukukawa had only a month to prepare the music and to put together an orchestra for the recording sessions. He immediately asked Masato Suzuki to conduct, and he gathered the players mainly from among his colleagues in the NHK Symphony Orchestra, including concertmaster Kei Shirai.

Fukukawa: Masato and I are the same age, and our first meeting was as composer and performer. I had commissioned him to write a new piece for horn; this was the beginning of our fruitful relationship, and we have since performed together on various occasions since. 

In addition to the four concertos, the disc contains the Concert-Rondo K. 371.

Fukukawa: Music fans will no doubt be familiar with the stories regarding Mozart’s horn concertos which were written for his friend, hornist Joseph Leutgeb (1732-1811). By all accounts, they were very good friends; in the autograph score, for example, one can see Mozart’s teasing scribbles to him. It has, likewise, been a great joy for me to record these works with my musical friends. 

Fukukawa says, “if Leutgeb gave the premiere of the horn concertos, Mozart himself most likely would have conducted and may have even joined in with the orchestra on the keyboard and done things to make the soloist giggle.”

One of the unique features of this complete Mozart set is that the...

by Jeff Snedeker

The story of the International Horn Society begins in 1968 and, fittingly, with a horn workshop. As William C. Robinson, freshly-hired horn professor at Florida State University (FSU), got to know his new students, “he became aware that his students, although talented, had very little knowledge of their instrument’s heritage. They were not familiar with the names of Anton Horner, Max Pottag, and others who were the founding fathers of horn playing in this country [i.e., in the USA]. Robinson’s growing awareness of this problem fostered the idea of bringing the world’s greatest horn players and teachers together for a workshop, including Anton Horner, Max Pottag, Wendell Hoss, and Carl Geyer. Robinson recalls, ‘Bringing them together would give all in attendance... the opportunity to get to know them and to learn an appreciation of the heritage of horn playing which is ours. Mr. Horner and Mr. Pottag were in their nineties and Mr. Hoss and Mr. Geyer were only slightly younger, so I knew that our time was limited if we were going to bring them, together.’” from David McKinley Hedgecoth, “The Life and Career of William Calvin Robinson” (MM thesis, Florida State University, 2003). 

In the summer of 1968 in Aspen, Colorado, Robinson spoke with Philip Farkas, with whom he had studied 10 years before and who had become a friend and mentor, about the idea of hosting a workshop that would feature the horn, its music, and some prominent performers. Farkas, already a legend from his orchestral and teaching career, expressed strong support, lending credibility to the idea, something that Robinson maintained was critical to the mounting of this first event. Next, Robinson spoke to Joseph White, his predecessor at FSU who had moved into an administrative role at the school, about the possible event. White, a former student of Anton Horner and a Curtis classmate of Mason Jones and James Chambers, was very supportive and together...

LAST CALL to access IHS53: Our ONE Horn Community! The symposium remains open and available until November 22! We hope you are continuing to enjoy all of the amazing presentations and recorded live-streams from our week-long online symposium in August. You can still register for access as there is still plenty of time to enjoy the masterclasses, lectures, and performances! Visit ihs53.com for links to the online symposium, registration, and SWAG!