Today when I was at my piano workground I encountered horn player and was forced (but eventualy it turned to be pleasure and great experience) to listen to his playing (very clearly despite two closed doors and hallway between us). Then I had conversation with other guy about french horn music and I've realised something:
French horn, at least in my opinion, has pretty weak repertoire. It's magnificent instrument with noble and rich sound but there are very little pieces for it that are real masterpieces of the same caliber as greatest violin or piano concertos.
But horns often get their "five minutes" in non-concertante orchestral music. Tchaikovsky's 5th, Mahler 5th, some Richard Strauss, Wagner (Siegfried's signal and many other short pearls).
His first cello concerto is almost a double concerto for horn and cello. There are many prominent horn solos in all of the movements (except obviously the 3rd which is a cadenza).
Yay, I'm a hornist who plays a lot with orchestras so I can comment with some knowledge on the subject.
There are a lot of concerti and chamber works for horn. Not as many as for violin or piano but it is the brass instrument with the most solo music written for it. Here's a short list of great pieces:
Corelli - two sonatas
Telemann - concerto
Mozart - four concerti, horn quintet, concert rondo
Haydn - two concerti
Beethoven - horn sonata
Brahms - horn trio
Schumann - concertpiece for four horns
Saint-Saens - Morceau de Concert
Dukas - Villanelle for Horn and Piano
Strauss - two concerti
Hindermith - concerto
For great horn features in concert music:
Haydn - Symphony 31
Beethoven - symphony 3 (third movement)
Beethoven - symphony 7 (1st and 4th mvt)
Shostakovich - symphony 5 (all movements)
Tchaikovsky - symphony 4 (1st mvt) and 5 (2nd mvt)
Bruckner - symphony 9 (1st mvt)
Brahms - symphony 1 (2nd and 4th mvt) symphony 4 (1st and 2nd mvt) piano concerto 2 (1st mvt)
Copland - symphony 3 (mvt 2 and 4)
Schubert - symphony 9 (1st mvt)
Mendelssohn - Nocturne from MND
Wagner - Lohingrin, all four parts of the Ring
Schumann - Symphony 1 (mvt 2)
Dvorak - symphony 7 8 and 9 (many places)
There's lots more. This is just off the top of my head.
All good examples, and thank you for that. As an amateur low horn player (usually 4th as i'm a tubist by training), i find that my orchestra's music director seems to schedule way too many works that only use 1&2 horns. This next concert, only 1 of the 4 works even have a 4th horn part
I'd love to be able to suggest works that have great 4th horn parts, or even if it's just heavy on 4th. If you know any, i'd appreciate hearing about them. I'd open this up to anyone who wants to answer.
It's when the horns hunt in packs that it raises the hairs on my neck. The great chorale passages in I of Bruckner 4, for instance. Schumann 3. Great stuff.
cheers,
GG
YES! Its theme 2 in the Sonata Form structure. Beautiful melody, and I love how it comes back in the full orchestra to start the recapitulation with theme 2 instead of theme 1.
Please correct me if it's not a FH but I love the quick little horn break in Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 3rd mvt..also, in Grieg's Piano Concerto 2nd mvt. just before the cello lick and right before the keyboard plays the first exquisite notes
Fifth symphonies (at least two of them) seem to have great horn moments. The second movement of Tchaikovsky 5 and the thid movement of Sibelius 5. Of course, I mean the famous "Swan Theme," or the "Thor's Hammer Theme," depending one which description works better for you.
I heard the Rite of Spring live a few weeks ago. It was the first time I had heard it live. The horns were awesome. At several points all 8 horn players lifted their horns up over their music stands for to project maximum volume. It gives me goosebumps now just thinking about it.
Not exactly a large melody, but there is a two note motif for horn at bars 466-67 of Henze's fourth symphony where the horn thrillingly rides above the tutti orchestra, fortissimo, to seal the whole work
And, of course, a horn wittily has the last word (last note) of Stockhausen's Gruppen
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