Beethoven; Brahms; Von Kruft - Music for Horn

This disc is great! There are just not enough good comments that one can make after listening to it. All of the pieces are recognizable, except for the von Kruft, which I had never heard before listening to this album.

All the pieces are played on period instruments; because of this, the album seems to have a constant sense of warmth. This is most noticeable in the Brahms piece. There are many good modern recordings, such as the one with Tuckwell, Perlman, and Ashkenazy that should be familiar, but this one has a different feel to it. When the horn comes in in the first movement there is this sound that almost gives me chills. It is so rich and smooth and soft-probably one of the most beautful sounds that I have heard on a horn recording. The rest of the piece is utterly brilliant as all three musicians blend together well; you can hear all three parts very clearly and they do not outplay one another. There is a great cohesiveness that is found here that I do not necessarily find on the Tuckwell version mentioned above. On that version, Tuckwell seems to try to be more virtuoistic than a member of a trio. This version played by Lowell Greer is possibley the best interpretation that I have ever heard.

The Beethoven sonata is also a nice inclusion. This gives the listener a new perspective on a familiar piece. Once again, there is this warmth that comes from the horn and piano molding and blending together. With this piece, it is easy to tell how free blowing the horn is. The notes, even the ones that need to be created with the hand, seem to ring from the horn with an ease that I have not heard since Dennis Brain. The tempo taken here is just right: it is not too slow and it is not too fast. The moderate tempo is extremely evident in the third movement. Don't get me wrong, I like to hear it played at break-neck speeds that show off how fast the player can play those runs, but I do not think that that speed is correct at all. Like Cerminaro, Greer lets the notes flow for themselves. They do not seem to be forced or rushed as in the version played by Tuckwell. I like how he can play really fast, but it, I think, is not necessarily right.

The von Kruft I had never heard before this disc. It is a great piece which should played more often. It is a bit longer than the Beethoven and seems to me a bit more repetitive. I think that this is so because the von Kruft employs a longer melody that seems to be more recognizable when played again. But I do like how the piece explores the melody further than Beethoven explores his own. The von Kruft is also more showy than the Beethoven. It employs more fast runs akin to more modern horn pieces. Nonetheless, a great piece.

This CD is well worth the price that you pay for it here. I think it should be included in any horn player's collection, no matter what style or period of music they like.

The performance of the Brahms on the natural horn is astounding. Lowell Greer is a real master and he lets you hear things that are hidden when the Brahms Horn Trio is played on a modern valve horn. I will never hear this piece the same again, and I guess I will have to rethink my own future performances.

The Beethoven Sonata also gains new meaning and insights on the natural horn and is worth a listen.

The von Krufft is well played but not my cup of tea.

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897), Trio in E Flat Major for Piano, Violin and Horn, Op. 40 (written in 1865);
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827): Sonata in F Major for Horn and Piano, Op. 17 (written in 1800);
Nikolaus von Krufft (1779 – 1818): Sonata in F Major for Horn and Piano (written approx. 1800).
Performed by: Lowell Greer, natural horn; Steven Lubin, pianoforte and fortepiano; and Stephanie Chase, violin.
Recorded in December, 1990, at the State University of New York at Purchase.
Harmonia Mundi. Re-released in 2001 as HCX 3957037 as part of the Classical Express series. Total time: 64'45".

This recording brings together three American musicians whom I greatly admire, and if I award the CD four stars instead of five (as most other reviewers have done and in contrast to the enthusiastic encomiums of “Gramophone” magazine), then that should not in any way be interpreted as deprecating the amazing musicianship to be heard here. My reasons for deducting a star are firstly, that I don’t feel that either the music (in particular the Brahms, the longest piece on the disc) nor the sound of the horns used here (all French-manufactured and particularly well-suited to the repertoire) can quite match up to the sheer magnificence and beauty heard on Lowell Greer’s recording of Mozart’s Horn Concertos (ASIN: B000056F7K). Well, of course Brahms and Beethoven are not Mozart, so this is just a subjective judgement coming from someone who loves 18th century music. The second reason for awarding four stars instead of five is that the engineering, the recorded audio sound, although certainly excellent, is not quite up to the standard of many other Harmonia Mundi recordings, with a little hissing and some occasional mechanical noise on the right stereo channel interfering a little with the listening pleasure. But having said all that, this is indeed a wonderful recording. The Brahms’ piece benefits greatly from period instruments, with Steven Lubin here playing a Boesendoerfer pianoforte made around 1854 in Vienna, and I also cherished the violin playing of Stephanie Chase, particularly in the Scherzo: Allegro and the Finale: Allegro con brio. As a whole, however, the Brahms is an acquired taste, and it is perhaps symptomatic that the author of the accompanying notes quotes at length a contemporary critique in which the dark quality of Brahms’ music is lambasted and the suggestion made that Brahms ought, in fact, to have used a clarinet instead of a horn. The Beethoven and the rare von Krufft pieces (with just a historic horn and a fortepiano) were light relief in comparison, with, to my mind, the Beethoven being head and shoulders better than either of the other two pieces. But “chacun a son gout”!