Thomas Crome and Gunther Hauer
Hindemith Sonata for Horn and Piano
http://www.mp3.com/thomas_crome

Journey from night music into bustling dawn, it is a pattern of other neeo
clasical works, and it is the pattern of Hindemith's Horn Sonata.  A work
marked by interlocking figurations in the piano and pure melody in the
horn.  It is so easy for the busy piano to overwhelm the soloist.  Instead
the pianist should create a shimmering curtain before which the horn player
sings.  But to sing requires a grasp of the inflections which give a work
the neo-classical sound - the turns toward the tritone, the 7th chords
where otherwise a triad would be expected, the fourth derrived chords.

The first movement - moderate - is more than a cousin to Mahler's &th
Symphony it is opening and form, obove an array of shifting textures, a
series of chromatically inflected melodies create forward motion, which in
their reflections in the figuration seem to have a dream like quailty, as
we see a man, walking down a beach late at night, and his shadows cast by
fires move as if animated on their own.  The challenge for the horn player
is encapsulated in the very opening of the sonata.  Hindemith wished to
combine neo-classical ideas of development, with the ability to create
enormously long themese for development - themes which did not rest on
older harmonic underpinnings.  Hence the melodic line is inflected four
times, each time extending it - stretching it out, beyond what it could
otherwise have been.  Thomas Crome instantly puts himself equal to this
task.  Listen to just the first 9 seconds, feel the slight swelling of tone
and accentuation on each important note, and how he then rounds the phrase
out at the final moment.

The secret of the second movement is to maintain a sense of calm agitation.
It is of a type and richness that can only be called pretty, an instantly
appealing sonority which the composer played out, and toys with any player
who wanders in without full command of his resources.  Here Herr Hauer
earns Kudos at the piano for brilliantly and smoothly playing the intense
piano part without giving over to flaying the dissonances, there is that
perfect German Expressionist shimmer - a kind of dark cousin to the light
of French Impressionism.  Thomas Crome makes his first entry with all of
the smoothness which is required, and maintains a pure even tone throughout
most of the movement - seeming first close and then far away.  These is
again night music, but it is not sorrowful, morning or maudlin.  Instead it
is the song of the night bird, flying through the wood, moonlight enriching
the leaves and gilding its wings when it chooses to flutter up and out.
The pianist must be always in the right place, sensitive to rhythmic
demands of the soloist, who must breath in and out like the wind through
the trees.  The great interpretive difficulty of this music comes at the
end, when the night glamour finally gives out, expires away - to lead to
a rustling morning twilight.  Crome takes this challenge head on, he is
given only a long descending horn line, and chooses to gradually loosen the
breath control, until the final note is almost a gasp rich with overtones
- a chromatic chord on a single note.  He is then instantly in place to
play tightly in the recapitulation.  It is one of those moments where a
listener feels for a moment the musician has made some sort of ghastly
mistake, only in the next moment to realise that instead the soloist has a
keen insight into structure and has taken a great risk to illuminate it.

The third movement gives us the morning Bustle of a new day, a day in
Berlin or Vienna as they waken perhaps.  Thomas Crome hits precise rhythmic
outbursts and then lands cat gracefully on the next cantilena.  The third
movement is where the communication between the soloist and the pianist is
most difficult and most rewarding.  There are long passages of solo work
broken up by short interuptions from the other player - these only make
sense if the supporting player can create the bridging between them - the
players must take up the rhythm almost without pause.  This is difficult
because in a normal concerto style setting of a sonata, the players take
turns one leading then the other.  Here the pianist must often be another
set of horns, and the horn player a third hand to the pianist.  Thomas
Crome also shows himself capable of using the range of blowing and phrasing
techniques open to the French Horn, from almost puffed out attacks to
melodies spun out like thread.

In this day and age when "speaking for ones times" seems to be a mania
among the chattering classes, it is good to point out that this pretty and
often optimistic work was composed on the eve of terrible conflict.  It is
of itself with themes that have such a powerful upward thrust that one is
reminiscent of the music which would alter be used for the first Star Trek
series.  Musical works speak not for times, but for people.

To make this work speak, these two musicians have combined an exquisite
sense of taste, a knowledge of music which is both difficult to understand
and requires intense patience and care.  Thomas Crome is listed as a first
Horn, and his easy and graceful way through the difficulties of this work
lead one to feel that the Baden Orchestra's horn players have a fine leader
who is as capable with his head as with is hands and heart.  Gunther Hauer
delivers a brilliant collaborative performance, always in place, always
understanding.  One might ask if he has the interest in conducting.

Stirling Newberry
http://www.mp3.com/ssn
War and Romance Radio: http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/8/war_and_romance.html