The Art of the Vienna Horn

"This album is about sound, tradition, expression, collaboration, and great horn literature. Wolfgang Tomboeck, principal horn of the Vienna Philharmonic since 1980, plays the Vienna Horn in F, as opposed to the standard double horn in F and B-flat in use today. Why would he play the Vienna when the double offers greater security in the high register? Because of its burnished tone and its link to the mid-19th Century. Tomboeck might say it is "beloved enemy, a charismatic brute...dangerous and untamable", but we are not aware of his struggles.

The works are masterpieces of Western art music. Tomboeck and pianist Madoka Inui give the Beethoven Sonata (1800) the huge contrasts of fire and grit, tenderness and lyricism it demands. It is the best reading I have heard since Paul Van Zelm's (July/Aug 1999: 255). About Schubert's On the River (1828), Tomboeck says: "We have never understood why Auf dem Strom is always interpreted so hysterically. In our reading the song is between dream and death ... a piece about dying amid beauty, a very Austrian idea." But this account borders on hysteria, too, in the big moments. Tomboeck and Inui sound wonderful all the time, soprano Genia Kuhmeier most of the time, but sometimes her strident delivery is a bit painful.

In Schumann's Adagio and Allegro (1849), with its yearning Adagio and tempestuous Allegro, Tomboeck's strength carries him through the intensity with seeming ease. And then there is the profound Horn Trio (1865) by Brahms, with Tomboeck's son Johannes, a fine violinist. For thorough discussions of this work, complete with recommendations and extensive comparisons, read any of Stephen Chakwin's excellent reviews (most recent, J/A 2002). In my more limited experience, this is among the best I have heard."
-- American Record Guide, July-August 2005

"This disc is entitled The Art of the Vienna Horn and for those collectors unfamiliar with the history of brass instruments a detailed note by the soloist explains exactly what the Vienna horn is. Briefly outlined, most horn players in orchestras throughout the world now play on an instrument which is referred to as the double horn, pitched both in F and B flat, with the possibility of switching between the two. The horn is a fiendishly difficult instrument to play from a technical point of view. The player's hopes that the instrument will oblige with the right notes are all too often confounded, and intonation problems and split notes are a constant danger. The main advantage of the double horn from the player's point of view is a slight relief from all this, but there is a price to pay, in that the tone of the double horn is less mellow, less round than that of the Vienna horn. This varies from player to player, however, and personally I wouldn't care to engage a professional advocate of the double horn on the subject. Nonetheless, the reasoning is that this characteristic tone colour is at the heart of the retention of the Vienna horn - or horn in F - by players in Vienna, and even a revival of its use for certain repertoire, notably German and Romantic, by players in other orchestras too.
Wolfgang Tomboeck is first horn in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as was his father before him. This fact alone will lead us to expect a certain standard and we are not disappointed. >From every point of view this is horn playing of the very first rank. The virtuosity is breathtaking, intonation impeccable and his tone is so round, rich and beautiful that the question of which instrument he is using becomes irrelevant as we surrender quite simply to the pleasure of listening.

The programme is a fascinating one. The disc opens with Beethoven's Horn Sonata, Op. 17, first performed in 1800 and therefore roughly contemporary with the first symphony. I had never heard it before playing this disc and it really is a superb work. From the arresting opening to the dazzling virtuosity of the finale - written for the natural horn! - the listener is almost bombarded by one engaging musical idea after another. The slow movement lasts less than a minute and a half, but the hypnotic dotted rhythms contribute to an intensively expressive atmosphere. The quality of Tomboeck's playing is established immediately and so consummate an artist is he that the list of attributes seems endless. To those already cited must be added a mastery of line in legato passages, but without forgetting - and this is particularly refreshing - that the horn is a brass instrument.

Long, legato lines are again in evidence in Schubert's late song Auf dem Strom. The horn part is conceived as a counterpoint to the voice and the two are supported by keyboard figuration representing water. I hadn't encountered Genia Kühmeier before, but she excellently conjures up and maintains the song's atmosphere, at once melancholy and serene. Further recordings of lieder from her will be welcome, and she is admirably supported by her colleagues. This is a wonderful song, and the accompanying notes are so informative and well-written that the absence of either text or translation seems all the more regrettable.

The Schumann, composed in 1849 to exploit the possibilities of the then new valve horn, is another immediately enjoyable work. More gorgeous, creamy horn tone is to be heard again at the outset and the virtuosity of the Allegro is brilliantly conceived for the new instrument and equally brilliantly dispatched by Tomboeck.

Brahms' Trio Op. 40 is of course well known and available in a number of other readings, usually coupled with other chamber works from the same composer. And what a wonderful work it is! Psychologically complex, the composer mourns the loss of his mother with a certain wildness rarely associated with him, whilst not neglecting the hunting features properly belonging to the instrument. It is here that Madoka Inui comes into her own, coping expertly with the considerable demands of the piano part and not failing to impose her own personality on the music when necessary. Father and son are admirably at one, but there are times when Johannes Tomboeck's playing can seem a little pale, particularly in direct comparison with some of the outsize personalities who feature on rival issues. But as is often the case direct comparison is unhelpful here, when the performance is so successful in its own right and when the recital as a whole is so obviously enjoyable and totally recommendable."
-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International, July 2005

"4 stars (Naxos)
In this richly enjoyable collection, Wolfgang Tomboeck - first horn in the Vienna Philharmonic since 1980 - shows off the distinctively fruity sound of the Vienna horn, a notoriously tricky instrument. As he says in his note: "On the Vienna horn there is no cheating." Yet his playing is fearless in its easy bravura, with the most difficult passages delivered with flair and panache. The early Beethoven sonata is crisp in attack yet warm, too, with the brief central adagio given the gravity of a funeral march.

The Brahms recital brings exhilaration in the galloping rhythms of the second and fourth movements, with the opening andante warm and relaxed. The rare Schumann piece and the late Schubert song (with horn obbligato) make valuable supplements."
-- Edward Greenfield, Guardian,14 January 2005

"Wolfgang Tomboeck's extensive notes to this release provide not only an overview of the evolution of the horn in general but an explanation of the precocious nature of the F horn or Vienna horn, with its close harmonics bringing the player into dangerous territory. The nearer the harmonics on any particular fingering, the more chance of the player 'missing' - i.e. splitting the note.

The Vienna horn (still in use in said city) remains a noble beast, its tone mellower than the more open B flat/F double. In the wrong hands this tone-quality can be woolly or even cumbersome, seeming to inhibit mobility. Not in the hands, lips, more accurately, of Wolfgang Tomboeck, however, a member of the Wiener Philharmoniker since 1978 and first horn since 1980. Tomboeck's tone is simply lovely. He combines all the necessary agility with this, plus no mean musicality.

The recital, travelling from Classical through Romantic in stages through to Brahms, begins with Beethoven's Horn Sonata. Known, I would imagine almost exclusively, to horn players, it is a thoroughly attractive work. Its opening, an unaccompanied, fanfare-like figure based on an F major triad (or C major for a player playing on horn in F) proves just how difficult the most elementary constituents of music can be in exposed circumstances. Actually here it also contains in embryo the seeds of Tomboeck's playing. Eminently musical, though without losing its annunciatory function, immediately we know this is a player of musicality and focus. Every note is bang in the middle. The players take the exposition repeat, correctly. Pianist Madoka Inui copes well with the tricky piano part, although Naxos's recording makes the piano sound rather tinny, not doing justice, I am sure, to Ms Inui's tone.

The tiny slip of a slow movement has both players tiptoeing on egg-shells before the joy that is the concluding Rondo. Suave and witty, there is a nice spring in the step.

Auf dem Strom is one of Schubert's most inspired Lieder. Less often heard than some of the finest Lieder, it is a work of great beauty. Written for horn in E it has a text by Rellstab. This is helpfully reproduced in the booklet, unhelpfully only in the midst of the German text and even more unhelpfully without translation. Perhaps print out this page: http://209.16.199.17/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=13382. The text is an archetype of parting, longing and death. As Tomboeck says in his notes, 'A piece about dying and beauty, a very Austrian idea'. Indeed. This performance is marked by a freshness that comes from the pure, pristine voice of soprano Genia Kühmeier. The intertwining of voice and horn lines is miraculous, a seeming free-flow of Schubertian spur-of-the-moment invention. If you don't already know this Lied, here is as good a place as any to start.

Schumann's Adagio and Allegro poses real perils for the player. The long line of the Adagio requires real legato and velvet tone; here no problem. However it is the top C (1'34, reached by octave slur) that instils the real fear. Obviously not in Tomboeck. There is a little 'air' around his sound that is most appealing, and both players achieve real repose. There is fine cantabile playing from Inui and superbly warm 'pedal' notes from Tomboeck. This contrasts with the gritty, confident (nay, swaggering) beginning of the Allegro. The 'Eusebius' moments are savoured. Tomboeck, in addition, seems to be able to project just the right amount of strain around his high (played) B flats.

Brahms' Trio, Op. 40 is a magnificent work. Aubrey Brain (father of Dennis) remains a clear historic recommendation (Pearl GEMMCD0007), yet for a modern version this one ranks with the very best. Brahms' warm, autumnal voice resonates well with the Vienna horn; the timbre is totally appropriate. Johannes Tomboeck, son of Wolfgang and a violinist with the Vienna State Opera, matches Wolfgang in terms of both warmth and conviction. There is throughout the first movement a sense of a smouldering passion underneath the surface, a passion that should surface in the Scherzo. Here the scherzo is a little under-powered to fully realise this. Better is the Adagio mesto with Inui at her best here. This really does manage to hypnotise the listener. If the finale could be more exciting towards the very end, its hunting origins are nevertheless well preserved.

A triumph; a real disc to be savoured. And most emphatically not limited in its appeal to horn players!"
-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb, January 2005

"The Vienna Horn is so called because of its widespread use, even today, in Vienna. But in fact it's not at all uncommon elsewhere: even Yamaha make them, distributing them worldwide. And many players - but only confident professionals! - and orchestras insist on them for the core Romantic repertory. It differs from what has become the standard horn (the so-called double horn) by having a single length of tubing, giving the harmonic series of F: the double horn allows the player to switch in, by means of a fourth valve, a shorter length of tubing in B flat enabling much more secure delivery of high-lying notes. The high price double-horn players pay, a Vienna horn player will tell you, is the tone quality of the smaller 'half' of the instrument - like going from grand to upright? Because the notes of the B flat harmonic series are further apart, there is a loss in its singing range of the characteristic lip-controlled legato.
'The Art of the Vienna Horn' makes for an interesting title: but of course the music chosen for this recital was, with the obvious exception of the Schumann piece, written for a very different and even simpler instrument, with no valves. Even the Brahms, dating as it does from 1865, some half a century after the chromatic horn was invented, was written for the old hand horn, in which notes outside the harmonic series had to be induced by crude hand-stopping and lip adjustment! So the significance of the use of a Vienna Horn in this repertory might, unless you're a horn player, that is, be considered incidental, even irrelevant.

Be all that as it may, this is an excellent disc. The programme gathers together the four most significant chamber works written for the horn during the fifty-or-so key years of its technical development. As such, it's an irresistible collection, and will surely be attractive to non-playing, as much as horn-playing, would-be purchasers. The Beethoven's an early but delightful piece. The Schubert dates from that annus mirabilis, 1828, the year of the last Quartets, Sonatas and - even more significantly - Winterreise. The Schumann is utterly gorgeous: no other word suffices, and its 'neglect' can only be explained by the demands it makes on the player. Of the four pieces, the Brahms - being staple repertory diet - needs no introduction from me.

Wolfgang Tomboeck is a superb player, he plays in the Vienna Philharmonic, so no surprises here, commanding an impressively rounded and full-bodied tone, with a positively liquid legato. Everything, yes even the chord at the end of the Schubert, is perfectly in tune. Horn playing simply doesn't get better than this! His security in the extremities of the instrument's range can only be wondered at. Listen to the punchy bottom F in the opening phrase of the Beethoven - perfectly focused - or the way he soars effortlessly up to the high F (three octaves higher!) in Schumann's Adagio.

His colleagues are supportive. The pianist, Madoka Inui, is a well-rounded musician - an unobtrusive accompanist who follows rather than leads. Genia Kühmeier, the soprano in the Schubert, has a pleasant voice, with clear diction: but her comparatively narrow tonal range and unsteady trills sound immature in this company. You may feel the same of Tomboeck's son, Johannes, who possesses a rather glassy tone, and cannot match the vocal authority of Perlman in his classic recording of the Brahms with Ashkenazy and Tuckwell. But this piece does not require, you may even say it does not benefit, from big personalities at the helm.

There's an interesting competitor in this repertory and price range in Andrew Clark's EMI Debut disc (7243 5 72822 2 2), which includes both Beethoven and Brahms pieces. But Clark uses a hand-horn, and his pianist, Geoffrey Govier, uses a 'period' piano, including an 1871 Bösendorfer in the Brahms. A fascinating comparison, then, but perhaps not a rival?

Tomboeck writes an interesting essay for the liner, including substantial notes on the Vienna Horn, its history, its repertory - and its justification! Unfortunately, the words of the Schubert aren't included."
-- Peter J Lawson, MusicWeb, December 2004