Classical Music for Aficionados

Hello all - the Schumann Konzertstuck is indeed a great piece. I do have that Gardiner recording, though it would be not quite correct to call all of the instruments natural horns - at least a couple of them do have valves on that recording. They are period instruments, but valves had been invented by then and were already in wide use. I would have to dig the liner notes out to figure out exactly what sort of instruments those are that are used on that recording. 

Schubert, do you remember who the other three soloists were when you heard Baumann play it? Were they people from the Gewandhaus section? 

By the way, I would not say the Nielsen is grossly underplayed - it is a staple in any good woodwind quintet's repertoire. However, there are probably less than a handful of professional woodwind quintets, at least that tour at all. I have played the piece a few times.  For another great woodwind quintet piece, try the Samuel Barber Summer Music, if  you do not know it. 

A couple of other great chamber works involving the horn would be the Beethoven Septet, and the Schubert Octet. 

Newbee, the Gliere is a great concerto. Baumann has an excellent recording, and another interesting one is the Valery Polek one, with the composer conducting! Polek premiered the work.  

Another really great horn concerto is by one of Schubert's favorites, Hindemith. It was written for Brain, who made an excellent recording of it. Another great piece would be the Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. 

learsfool, I assume they were from the Gewandhaus , Baumann did a solo piece but can’t remember what it was . Was a long time ago and my brain is 85 .

I can just say that the two wind players than made the greatest impression
on me live are Baumann and Heinz Holliger, who was so good it was hard to believe he was human .
Of course every wind quintet has Op43 as a staple , but they are few enough that I have never heard it live.

My favorite band is the Gewandhaus , has been since Masur. God willing. I’m making my last trip to my beloved Germany in Oct. to hear them play the the Mahler 1 and some Tchaikovsky.. Andris Nelsons has them playing very well as did Chailly before him . 53 Euros for center right ticket to Heaven ! Lufthansa is a bit more .

Craig, what you have heard about Brahms is true, as far as being the last of the major composers to use natural horns in his works. What Brahms did in his symphonies, for instance, was (generally) to use one pair of natural horns (Horns I and II), and one pair of valved horns (III and IV). So he did take advantage of the newer instruments; however he and many others at the time felt that the valved horns were inferior to the natural horns in tone quality. This could perhaps have been true, at first, but it was not a universal opinion at the time. Brahms had very conservative musical tastes. He was a horn player himself, you know. He even wrote an etude book for the instrument! It's quite good, though not much in use today. I would guess most horn players don't even know it exists, let alone have a copy. 

Wagner's first use of the new instruments was fascinating, in Lohengrin. At first, he did not quite understand the concept, and assumed that the purpose was to essentially have several natural horns on the same instrument - in other words, that it would still be played as a hand horn, just with the ability to change the key of it at will.  The result of this misunderstanding was that he changed the key of the instrument sometimes after only a bar and a half!  So one has to be alert when playing, for instance, the oft-played Prelude to the Third Act, as the transposition changes come thick and fast - it gives students a great deal of trouble at first.

As far as recordings go, I know that John Eliot Gardiner has a good recording of the Brahms Requiem. I do not know if there are any period instrument recordings of the symphonies - I don't think Gardiner has recorded those. Being still very active, I don't really have time to keep up with everything going on in the recording world anymore.  I am very familiar with what was recorded up to say the mid-90s, but not nearly so much since then, when I won my position in a full-time symphony. Many others on this board would be much more familiar than I with who has recorded what in the last twenty years or so. I'm pretty sure there were no period instrument recordings of the Brahms symphonies before the mid-90s, but someone may have done it since.  

schubert - I do not remember where you live, if you have ever said. Assuming you are in or close to a major metropolitan area, you would be much more likely to catch a performance of a woodwind quintet at your local universities/conservatories. Also, see if there are any chamber music series in your area that have winds on them. Often, symphonic musicians in major orchestras will have a series set up to give them an outlet for chamber music, which they control, unrelated to their orchestra. Perhaps the performances are located in a local church. It is in this way that I have played most of the major wind quintet works professionally, as well as the Beethoven Septet and the Schubert Octet, and many other major chamber works.  You might see if you can find such a series in your area.  

Superb response, learsfool; thanks.