Haydn: The Natural Horn

Franz Josef Haydn (Composer), Anner Bylsma (Conductor), L'Archibudelli (Orchestra), Ab Koster (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Ab Koster
• Orchestra: L'Archibudelli
• Conductor: Anner Bylsma
• Composer: Franz Josef Haydn
• Audio CD (December 10, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony Classical
• ASIN: B000002BZN
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,478 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Cassation (divertimento) for 4 horns, violin, viola & continuo in D major, H. 2/D22 (possibly spurious): Movement 1

2. Cassation (divertimento) for 4 horns, violin, viola & continuo in D major, H. 2/D22 (possibly spurious): Movement 2

3. Cassation (divertimento) for 4 horns, violin, viola & continuo in D major, H. 2/D22 (possibly spurious): Movement 3

4. Cassation (divertimento) for 4 horns, violin, viola & continuo in D major, H. 2/D22 (possibly spurious): Movement 4

5. Cassation (divertimento) for 4 horns, violin, viola & continuo in D major, H. 2/D22 (possibly spurious): Movement 5

6. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in E flat major, H. 2/21: Allegro molto

7. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in E flat major, H. 2/21: Menuetto & Trio

8. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in E flat major, H. 2/21: Adagio

9. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in E flat major, H. 2/21: Menuetto & Trio

10. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in E flat major, H. 2/21: Finale. Allegro

11. Horn Concerto No. 1 in D major, H. 7d/3: Allegro

12. Horn Concerto No. 1 in D major, H. 7d/3: Adagio

13. Horn Concerto No. 1 in D major, H. 7d/3: Allegro

14. Divertimento a 3 for horn, violin & cello in E flat major, H. 4/5: Moderato assai

15. Divertimento a 3 for horn, violin & cello in E flat major, H. 4/5: Allegro di molto

16. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in D major, H. 2/22: Allegro

17. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in D major, H. 2/22: Menuet & Trio

18. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in D major, H. 2/22: Adagio

19. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in D major, H. 2/22: Menuet & Trio

20. Divertimento for 2 horns, 2 violins, viola & bass in D major, H. 2/22: Finale. Presto

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable clarity and precision, March 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Haydn: The Natural Horn (Audio CD)

Ab Koster and the soloists and ensemble of L'Archibudelli have executed an outstanding performance of five of Josef Haydn's works for horn with remarkable clarity, precision, and grace. Two divertimenti for horns and string quartet are included and grouped with a horn cassatio, a divertimento à tre, and a D Major Horn Concerto. The use of period instruments (including two Stradivarius and Amata violins) enhances the quality infinitely beyond that of performance on modern instruments. These are true jewels of the musical repertoire, several of which have only recently been discovered in the musical archives of Europe. Highly recommended for fans of chamber music. END

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars contagius perfomance, September 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Haydn: The Natural Horn (Audio CD)

Excellent recording fot the horn and chamber music literature. Ab Koster is one of the bests horn players in the world, especially in the natural horn he's unique. The horns that he play are historical documents from Haydn's time. L'Archibudelli it's a fantastic chamber group with the famous cellist Anner Bylsma. A fundamental recording for all the people who loves music.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elegant Wallpaper ..., December 2, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Haydn: The Natural Horn (Audio CD)

... of the highest quality, such as maestro Josef Haydn scribbled in reams for his Esterhazy patron's public entertainment, but musical wallpaper despite the skill with which it was composed and with which it is played. I'm referring chiefly to the cassations and divertimenti, all written for the in-house orchestras at Eisenstadt and later at Esterhaza. The orchestra in livery is playing at one end of a grand salon while the aristocratic guests bow and flatter and converse in gilded hexameters. "Nothing too distracting please, Josef, but be sure to give my four highly-paid horn players plenty of rousing passages to display my martial sensibilities!"

Modern French horn players benefit perversely from the reputation their instrument has of being a treacherous beast. Any horn player who acquits himself/herself well, without obvious bloppers, on a number of exposed passages in a concert will receive boisterous applause at the curtain calls. I'm absolutely sure this was true in Haydn's courtly milieu also; half the pleasure an audience gets from a concert with horns comes from hearing the horn players skirt the abyss of burbles and 'clams' that are so much more blatant on their instruments than on any other. Why spoil the fun, then, by giving the poor oxen and oafs (as Mozart called them) keys or valves to lessen the challenge?

In fact, the 'natural' horns -- there were numerous sorts -- of Haydn's era were not such undependable instruments as modern audiences have been told. On any horn or trumpet, the upper registers are played and tuned chiefly by embouchure, not by valves, by employing the upper partials of fundamental pitches. Clappers and keys were eventually added to trumpets to allow players to produce full chromatic scales in their lower register. Horn players of the 18th C chose a different solution; using their hands as mufflers inside the bells of the instruments, they could change a pitch by a half or whole step. The musical result was a kind of textured timbre, some notes always clear and bright, some notes shaded and somber. That 'texture' was part of the special affect of the instrument, an affect that Haydn exploited carefully and artfully, as you will hear on these pieces.

The Concerto in D major and probably the Divertimento à tre in E-flat major both demand extraordinary virtuosity from the horn players over a huge range with lots of cavernous low-lying passagework. Haydn plainly wrote them for occasions when he had exceptionally competent horn players on hand, partly to justify his employer's largesse to them and partly to gratify the horn players themselves. "Papa" Haydn was known for his collegial generosity to his instrumentalists as much as for his amorous attentions to his singers. Horn players, by the way, were exceptionally well paid and in demand. Joseph Leutgeb, for whom both Haydn and Mozart wrote horn concertos, received the same salary at Esterhaza as Haydn himself. Carl Franz, the resident horn virtuoso at Esterhaza from 1763 to 1776, must have been a master at the use of hand muffling in the bell; the Divertimento in E-flat major composed for him is one of the most challenging pieces ever written for the instrument.

Ab Koster, as you'll hear on this CD, would have had no trouble landing a job at Esterhaza or anywhere else in 18th C Europe. He's that good. On this recording, he's backed up by one of the best historical string instrument ensembles ever assembled, L'Archibudelli, directed by Anner Bylsma. Still, this isn't profound music, nor was it meant to be, and that's the reason that I don't see fit to rate the CD at five stars. For most listeners, it will be a novelty and little more.