Music to smash all preconceptions about the French horn
Ben Goldscheider, the sought-after French horn player, presents a programme designed to smash all preconceptions about the instrument.
It features three world premieres, by Zoe Martlew, Mark Simpson and Thea Musgrove, along with innovative works which combine the horn’s noble and heroic sound with live and fixed electronics.
In Alex Groves’ Single Form (Dawn), the instrument’s harmonic series is extrapolated, layered and intensified creating a sonic sunrise spanning three octaves.
Hildegard Westerkamp’s Fantasie for Horns II pitches the live instrument into a conversation with pre-recorded car and boat horns, along with alphorns and natural phenomena that connect the instrument to its roots.
Goldscheider says: ‘I am personally fascinated by the speed of the technology and how, in surround sound, the eyes and the ears begin to deceive one another as the live horn playing intertwines with the electronics.
‘This programme aims to stimulate, to broaden perspectives and allow a glimpse into relatively unknown territory with the instrument that Robert Schumann calls “the soul of the orchestra”.’
