What a thrill that must have been! I can't think of a more seredipidous way to perform that piece.... Ed At 04:13 PM 2/1/98 EST, you wrote: >In a message dated 98-01-31 13:18:26 EST, you write: > >>Tom, you wrote >> >>Today, I heard, for the first time in a long time, a CD of Benjamin >>Britten's "Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings" (recorded 1944). Dennis >>Brain plays some amazing french horn solos wherin some notes sound >>incredibly out of tune. There is one note that could easily be 50 cents >>flat. But the effect is tremendous: the intonation of every note seems >>to have been chosen for a particular purpose rather than simply being >>"out of tune". I would describe it, from my ET perspective, as knowing >>the rules of equal temperament and knowing when to break them. >> >>You are correct in that the notes sound "out of tune." (I am a horn >>player..) That piece requests that the horn player do the opening passage >>on the "open" horn, that is without valves. Thus the horn is playing the >>notes on the natural harmonic overtones of the horn's fundamental. The >>higher the overtone, the more the variation from what we would consider the >>"normal" tuning. Particularly the 7ths, the 11ths, and their octaves. >> This is the way that Britten wanted it to sound. >> >>Ed >>Ed Carwithen >>Oregon > > >Britten's Serenade is an incredibly haunting piece of litarature for horn, >tenor and strings. My wife (a soprano) and I (a French horn player), performed >this piece for our graduate recital in college, with my dad playing the string >part on piano. > >Willem Blees >St. Louis > > Ed Carwithen Oregon
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