On a Tuesday in December I learned that my second horn player had gotten the
dates mixed up and had a set-in-stone conflict for our holiday concert the
following Friday. I contacted every horn player I knew in the south Puget
Sound area & every single one was booked. I was desparate. We were playing
this totally cool Franz Josef Haydn "Organ Concerto in F" in a local church w/
a fabulous pipe organ. This piece has a horn duet that's absolutely critical
for the success of the piece. So at the final rehearsal, I had to face the
conductor w/ the terrible news that I'd have to play the part alone. Our
trumpet principal overheard me & asked, "Could you rewrite the second horn part
in Bb and let me try it on my flugel horn?" I went home & rewrote it having no
idea how it would turn out. The trumpet principal & I got together early
before the concert & went over the part. To my amazement, he was able to make
his flugel horn sound like a French horn. (He's very skilled.) There were a
few notes he had to play up an octave, but it all turned out great. Who knew a
flugel horn could sound so warm & sonorous as to pass for a second horn part?
Have any of you had the priviledge of playing this rarely played piece? It's
SOOO fun.
Another piece we did that was especially fun for me was Mozart's "Three German
Dances" (with Sleigh Ride and hand bells). In the second movement (or dance)
the horn carries the melody all the way through. It was so cool.
Valerie
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