Search - Beethoven, Danzi, Muller :: Horn Sonatas

Great natural horn playing here

John Bodnar | Cedar Park, TX | 07/24/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fine CD with three horn sonatas, all played by Thomas Mueller on a vintage (ca. 1840) Courtois natural horn in partnership with Edoardo Torbianelli performing on an 1817 Broadwood fortepiano in the collection of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.The performance of the Beethoven sonata (a favorite of natural horn players) is one of the best on record, with Mueller obviously enjoying the leaps between the high and low registers of the instrument.Ferdinand Ries was one of Beethoven's long-time friends and pupils, and his horn sonata is quite the discovery. It has features in common with horn sonatas by another Beethoven pupil and early romantic composer, Carl Czerny.For listeners only familiar with hearing Mozart's works for horn, this CD will prove quite the eye opener, as the three sonatas by Beethoven, Ries, and Franz Danzi (one of the many musical talents who performed in and wrote music for the famous Mannheim Hofkapelle) really show off the hand-stopping technique developed by Josef Hampel during Mozart's lifetime and perfected by his student Punto (the performing name of the Bohemian hornist Johann Wenzel Stich), the dedicatee of the Beethoven work."