Camille Saint-Saëns, Morceau de concert Op. 94 for horn and piano - Anneke Scott & Steven Devine

Anneke Scott (horn) and Steven Devine (fortepiano)
Camille Saint-Saëns, Morceau de concert Op. 94 for horn and piano (1887)
“Chaussier” Omnitonic horn, copy of original Millereau (1880s) by Egger (2012)
Grand Piano by Erard, London, 1866 (Richard Burnett Collection)
Learn more about this performance here: • 5. Corno not Corona Co...
Recorded at Richard Burnett Heritage Collection of Keyboard Instruments, Waterdown House, Tunbridge Wells. January, 2022.
Producer: Stephen Stirling
Engineer: John Croft (Chiaro Audio)
Videographer: Ioannis Theodoridis
with thanks to the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS Enterprise Award, 2021)
www.annekescott.com

[@MatthewHaislip]

Brava!! Fascinating to hear this on a period instrument!! You are doing POWERFUL work for our community!

[@AnnekeScott]

Awwwww thanks! Coming from you that's praise indeed!

[@cristiancaiola9588]

I've been obsessed with the unique sound of the period horns you use. I've started scouring thrift shops in my area looking for a natural horn lol! Thank you for your art!

[@AnnekeScott]

Oh wonderful! Wishing you success with your hunt!

[@maxbygrave3798]

Beautiful! Refreshing performance and so different to the version so often heard on regular double horns.

[@AnnekeScott]

Indeed - one of the things you notice really strongly with this horn is that it does have the different colours associated with the different crooks - so some valve combinations are quite bright and zingy whilst others are dark and dense. This makes it quite a different sonic palette to what we're used to on the modern double.

[@joharris5014]

Oohhh those turns! You’re ace Anneke! Been saving this one up to listen to on my train journey. Smiling along. 😀

[@AnnekeScott]

Ohhh thanks! It's such a fabulous piece. Glad you enjoyed it Jo!

[@pacojoaquina4053]

Fantástica interpretación. No la conocía. Magnifico. Gran manejo de la trompa natural. Muchísimas gracias por sus grabaciones!!!

[@AnnekeScott]

Gracias!

[@sergioubetense]

Absolutely brilliant! Congratulations Anneke! The job that you do with the ancients instrument is incredible. Thanks you so much. Best wishes from spain from a student of Raúl Díaz! ❤

[@AnnekeScott]

Thank you!!!! Lucky you studying with Raúl Díaz! He's a really fabulous musician and I hear great things about him as a teacher as well!

[@noegodinez1777]

Ears filled with joy

[@AnnekeScott]

Thank you!

[@VernonStradling]

Fascinating to hear the piece on a period instrument. It gives it a very different feel from a modern horn. Great coat btw :-)

[@AnnekeScott]

Yes it's a very different playing experience for sure. And thanks! It was a lucky charity shop purchase!

[@2451Yvonne]

Love period instruments and this performance truly made my day!

[@Gonzol7]

Quelle inspiration! La musique, le cor--et les musiciens, certainement--merci!

[@avrumgolub2735]

Marvelous musicianship and technique! I had the pleasure of studying this work as John Barrows' first "kid" student (age 12)(1958-1962) in his New York City days and have performed it many times. You reveal sonorities (warmth with edge) that I cannot as I play a Alexander Horns (presently a 107x), but understand given Saint-Saëns' writings. Thank you for expanding my knowledge!

[@AnnekeScott]

Thank you so much! What kind words. Yes, I agree that some of these sonorities aren't automatically feasible on most modern doubles but I do feel that knowing more about the background to the composition of this piece will encourage modern players to experiment with the colours and interpretations that are still possible. Always a pleasure sharing this material so I'm thrilled you enjoyed this!

[@avrumgolub2735]

@@AnnekeScott Your videos, both from the point of playing and explanation, markedly contribute to our deeper understanding of the music and our instrument. A heartfelt thank you for your work.

[@AnnekeScott]

@@avrumgolub2735 Thanks!

[@Oversizeyou]

Braviiii!!!!! 😀

[@AnnekeScott]

Thank you! It's such a fun piece to play!

[@corniste]

Just one question; how many dozen fingering mistakes did you had recording this piece? The horn is quite centered and easy to play, but the fingerings are a real nightmare...

[@AnnekeScott]

Totally agree about the fingering nightmare! It took a quite a while to learn it with the new fingerings and I had to write many of them in the part! I started off by using Chaussier's fingering chart from his book and learnt the piece using his recommendations in order to learn the new fingerings. Then I started to rethink as much of the piece as I could as a natural horn piece - so I searched for sections in which it was possible to play a stretch (sometimes many bars, sometimes a few notes) using one "crook". One draw back with the design is that because of the way the horn is built if you change one tuning slide on one valve it potentially affects the others so it makes tuning the instrument, and some valve combinations forming a "crook" difficult so some options that looked good "on paper" didn't work in practice. It's a clever idea, quite complicated, but with practice you can learn a new system!

[@imilo66blitz83]

M95 2:42 M103 2:54 M111 3:08

[@hornplayerjoao]

👋👋👋

[@AnnekeScott]

Thanks!

[@joeywalker2204]

Amazing playing! From one of Martin Lawrence's pupils!

[@AnnekeScott]

Ohhhh! You lucky thing. Martin is FANTASTIC - you've got a great teacher there!

[@joeywalker2204]

@@AnnekeScott he is!

[@paulkolodner2445]

This is a wonderful performance, but something confused me. The E-naturals are all stopped. I thought I also caught one C that was played stopped. Meanwhile, the part marked "sons bouchés" was played stopped but with the valves. Why did you do that? Could you please explain what key the horn is in and how the fingerings differ from those on a modern horn? Thanks.

[@AnnekeScott]

Hello there! There's a whole video here explaining about the instrument and the choices made that you might find helpful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fH7ElqaFisx1ea8si=LFv0r4E3-4qjfAdB - basically Saint-Saëns wrote this piece for an omnitonic horn and the one I'm playing is a copy of the type he wrote it for, designed by the horn player Chabrier. The fingerings are TOTALLY different to the modern horn. The instrument incorporates all the keys (from Bb basso (thumb and 1st valve) through to Bb alto (2nd and 3rd valve) so in certain passages you can instantly "crook" into a new key and play it like the natural horn. But in other passages (using this totally different fingering system) you can play it like a chromatic piston horn. Or you can approach it like some French players did as a mixture of both hand horn and valve horn. Because in the "sons bouchés" passage Saint-Saëns includes "open" notes you need to use valves so that all the notes are stopped.

[@paulkolodner2445]

@@AnnekeScott I looked into this a bit further, and it looks like (a) the three main valves make the same steps as on a modern horn, but (b) pressing one of them raises the pitch rather than lowering it. It might be easier to play if you hang upside down.

[@AnnekeScott]

@@paulkolodner2445 Hehehe! Playing upside down might be simpler than most things on this horn! Yes! The fingering system is quite different - for example the fact that putting the "thumb valve" down shifts you into C basso rather than B flat alto - so it really is a bit of a mind bender!

[@hahahahe7718]

What kinda horn do you use to get that kind of sound

[@AnnekeScott]

This is really quite a special one. It's a copy made by Egger's in Switzerland of the original by Millereau, it's an omnitonic horn designed by the horn player Henri Chaussier.

[@user-gw4pw8pt8p]

基本F管で上昇バルブもあるのかな？ ストップ音とバルブの使い分けはどう決めてるんだろう？

[@AnnekeScott]

Hello! The horn stands in F and the first valve behaves “normally” and lowers the instrument by a tone into E flat. But the second valve, rather than lowering by a semitone, is an ascending valve which raises by a semitone putting the instrument into F sharp. Then the third valve is another ascending valve this time by a major third, putting the instrument into A. And the rotary thumb valve is a separate valve (rather than one that switches between two sides or two separate systems like on the modern or most compensating horns), and lowers the instrument by a fourth into C basso. The combinations of these four valves mean I can play everything from Bb basso (thumb and 1st valve) through to Bb alto (2nd and 3rd valve).

[@AnnekeScott]

I decided where to use valves and where to use hand-technique through practice and experimentation. Because the fingering for this horn is so unusual I initially learnt the piece as a valve horn piece in order to help me learn this new system. Once I had done that I went through the piece and tried to find passages that worked well on the natural horn (for example the opening of the slow section). And then there were some places where a mixture of the two helped! For example sections where I used valves except for one or two notes where also using hand technique was easier than some complicated valve combinations. Hope that answers your question?

[@user-gw4pw8pt8p]

Thank you !!!! Great play !!

[@AnnekeScott]

@@user-gw4pw8pt8p Thanks!