Dennis Brain (horn)
BBC Northern Orchestra
(Leader, Reginald Stead )
Conductor, John Hopkins Richard Strauss' father was the leading horn-player in the Munich Opera Orchestra, so the composer must have been familiar with the instrument from his earliest years. He wrote two concertos for the horn, both of them in the key of E flat (the key favoured by Mozart for his horn concertos). No. 1 dates from 1885, when Strauss was twenty-one; No. 2 was written in 1942, towards the end of his life, and like h:s other works of that time it flows along easily, in reminiscent mood. and its texture is rich yet translucent. The opening Allegro (which is very typical of Strauss, with its wide-spaced intervals and its exultant character) is linked to the slow movement, a hauntingly beautiful Andante con molo; the finale takes the form of a Rondo, Allegro molio, in six-eight time. Harold Rutland