Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Divertimento (“A Musical Joke”) for two horns and string quartet (version for strings and double bass), K.522, Op. 93 (1787)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Sextet in E-flat major for two horns and string quartet, Op. 81b (1795)
Performers:
Jairo Gimeno Veses, first horn
Gilbert Camí Farràs, second horn
Vladislav Pesin, first violin
Mikhail Andrushchenko, second violin
Lev Serov, viola
Evgeny Rumyantsev, cello
Carlos Navarro, double bass
Duration is 50 minutes
Details
The horns of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s era are charming and capricious instruments. Natural horns (the generic name of a large family of horns of the 17th-18th centuries with different design features) could only be played in certain keys, but so masterfully that now some horn parts in the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven seem almost impossible to perform. Natural horns sounded softer and their timbre was richer than that of the modern ones, and their upper register in the hands of a skilled musician had a special sonority, agility, and purity.