Mozart's Horn Concertos
Dennis Brain's recording of Mozart's Horn Concertos
Gramophone Choice
Horn Concertos Nos 1-4. Piano Quintet in E flat, K452
Dennis Brain (hn) Philharmonia Orchestra / Herbert von Karajan
EMI mono 566898-2 (77' · ADD · Recorded 1953) Buy from Amazon
Dennis Brain was the finest Mozartian soloist of his generation. Again and again Karajan matches the graceful line of his solo phrasing (the Romanze of No 3 is just one ravishing example), while in the Allegros the crisply articulated, often witty comments from the Philharmonia violins are a joy. The glorious tone and the richly lyrical phrasing of every note from Brain himself is life-enhancing in its radiant warmth. The Rondos aren’t just spirited, buoyant, infectious and smiling, although they’re all these things, but they have the kind of natural flow that Beecham gave to Mozart. There’s also much dynamic subtlety – Brain doesn’t just repeat the main theme the same as the first time, but alters its level and colour. His legacy to future generations of horn players has been to show them that the horn – a notoriously difficult instrument – can be tamed absolutely and that it can yield a lyrical line and a range of colour to match any other solo instrument. He was tragically killed, in his prime, in a car accident while travelling home overnight from the Edinburgh Festival. He left us this supreme Mozartian testament which may be approached by others but rarely, if ever, equalled, for his was uniquely inspirational music-making, with an innocent quality to make it the more endearing. It’s a pity to be unable to be equally enthusiastic about the recorded sound. The remastering leaves the horn timbre, with full Kingsway Hall resonance, unimpaired, but has dried out the strings. This, though, remains a classic recording.
Additional Recommendation
Horn Concertos Nos 1-4. Horn Quintet in E flat, K407
David Pyatt (hn) Kenneth Sillito (vn) Robert Smissen, Stephen Tees (vas) Stephen Orton (vc) Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Sir Neville Marriner
Warner Apex 2564 68161-9 (70' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
David Pyatt, Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year in 1996, provides performances in which calm authority and high imagination fuse; and this disc complements the nobility and urbanity of Dennis Brain. Although there can be no direct comparison with Anthony Halstead (Decca), Pyatt’s is very much in that mode of supple, understated and often witty playing, accompanied by truly discriminating orchestral forces. Soloist and orchestra create a constantly shifting and lively pattern of dynamic relationships. Pyatt makes the music’s song and meditation his own. Compared with the dark, dream-like cantabile of Brain, he offers in the Second Concerto an Andante of cultivated conversation and, in the Third, a Romanze of barely moving breath and light. His finales trip the light fantastic. The Second Concerto’s springing rhythms reveal wonderfully clear high notes; the Third is nimble and debonair without being quite as patrician as Brain’s; and the Fourth creates real mischief in its effervescent articulation. The cadenzas by Terry Wooding (to the first movements of the Third and Fourth Concertos) epitomise Pyatt’s performances as a whole: longer and more daringly imaginative than those of Brain, while remaining sensitively scaled and fancifully idiomatic. The concertos are imaginatively and unusually coupled with a fine performance of the Horn Quintet in E flat.
