Mozart: Horn Concertos [Import]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Artist), Lowell Greer (Artist), Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (Artist), Nicholas McGegan (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 13, 2001)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Hmf Classical Exp.
• ASIN: B000056F7K
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,302 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #93 in Music > Classical > Instruments > Brass > French Horn

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glorious sound of the cor naturel, July 16, 2005

By 

Leslie Richford (Selsingen, Lower Saxony) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mozart: Horn Concertos (Audio CD)

For this recording, Lowell Greer himself reconstructed a natural horn of the type that was invented during Mozart's later years and was generally played in orchestras at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He is pictured holding the horn in the booklet, and the pride in his eyes is only natural, for this is a wonderful-sounding instrument that seems ideal for playing Mozart's playfully beautiful Horn Concertos. Greer and the Philharmonia Baroque play in a relatively straightforward, perhaps even somewhat naive manner, but this is not necessarily a criticism: At all events, the disc can give enormous listening pleasure (as is presumably evidenced by the fact that I have often heard it being played on German radio stations). The engineering puts the horn on the left of proceedings and in the centre of attention, and it is truly wonderful to listen to this glorious sound. Musicologically, I suspect that the Sony Vivarte recording made by Ab Koster and the Canadian Tafelmusik ensemble is a little more refined (and the music has definitely been reconstructed in a more accurate manner there); but nonetheless, the Harmonia Mundi recording is a true classic and is well worth the listening to.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making history alive!, June 18, 2008

By 

Gary D. Gardner, Music Director - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mozart: Horn Concertos (Audio CD)

I had heard tracks from Lowell Greer's Mozart Horn Concertos played on natural horn several times on various classical music radio stations without paying attention to what was going to be played and by whom. So it actually took quite some time to determine that the horn soloist was playing on the hand horn of Mozart's era, because Lowell Greer's virtuoso technique and outstanding musicality made the instrument sound as clear and smooth as the more modern valve horn. Yet the rich, full tone of his natural horn is more lovely than the valve horn. It now becomes clear why hornists resisted changing to the valved instrument up until Wagner's lifetime. While perhaps gaining some more chromatic fluency with the valve horn, the different keyed hand horns had their own recognizable color and feeling in each specific length of tubing that produced the proper key. It is now more understandable why classical musicians attributed so much character and personality to each different tonality.

Thank you, Lowell Greer, for providing such a definitive example of how excellent music and musicians must have been in the classical era!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its the music, its the performance, January 10, 2009

By 

Leonard L. Brown (Laredo, Tx. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mozart: Horn Concertos (Audio CD)

Dr. Greer plays these Concertos on the early type of instrument they were written for, the valveless natural horn. Notes are changed by putting the hand in and out of the bell and use of the lip. For about the first 3 minutes this all matters and then just the awesome performance of the Mozart concerto takes over. It really doesn't matter what type of French Horn is used, these are wonderful interpretations. Hearing them played flawlessly on a period instrument is just icing on the cake. The sound is more hornlike than modern instruments and it is hard to believe that valves are not involved. Bravo!