Since performing in the final of the 2016 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Ben Goldscheider has established himself as one of Britain’s leading horn players. Still only 25, he has given recitals at venues ranging from Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw to London’s Royal Albert Hall, and was an ECHO Rising Star for the 2021-2022 season. We sat down with him and he ran us through what he believes to be the best horn concertos in the instrument’s repertoire. Without further ado, over to Ben!
Best horn concertos
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
Dennis Brain, for whom this was written, wanted a horn concerto, but he got this piece. To this day, nobody has really succeeded in emulating its form. Each movement is a character study on a different facet of the horn: in some movements it acts as a commentator on the text; at other moments it bursts forth, for example in the ‘Dirge‘ where the fortissimo horn melody totally obliterates the voice. So, Britten understands what the horn is as a symbol and treats it in a unique way.
Oliver Knussen: Horn Concerto
One of Knussen’s biggest strengths was timbral variety, and in this piece he weaves an incredible tapestry of orchestral colour. I love the way that the horn flits in and out of that tapestry: at times it’s part of the collective; at others, it’s very solitary, for example at the beginning where the horn melody hangs in the air as though it’s echoing off cliffs. It’s also one of the most enjoyable concertos to learn. I was meant to perform it with the London Philharmonic Orchestra last year, but I got Covid before the concert. So, I’m pining to play it.
Richard Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 2
Although Strauss’s First Horn Concerto, which he wrote as a teenager, is his most famous, this one, written 60 years later, reveals the experience of the composer in his later years. You see the bombastic elements of the young Strauss, which makes you think of Der Rosenkavalier or Don Juan, but you also get the more introverted Strauss of Metamorphosen, as well as a sense of someone who was trying to break away from conventional structure. This was also the first concerto I played with a professional symphony orchestra – in the BBC Young Musician final – so it’s very special to me.
Gavin Higgins: Horn Concerto
Gavin Higgins was a horn player with a brass band background, and he pushes the instrument technically. But he does it in a way that feels just right, while remaining fun and manageable for the player. Like Knussen, he has an amazing feeling for orchestral colour and texture. It’s thrilling to stand there in some of the tuttis and hear this huge orchestral sound behind you. And the second movement is so beautiful and expressive. I think this is one of those concertos that we’ll still be playing in 100 years’ time.
Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 3
I had to include a Mozart horn concerto. This one is not his most famous – that distinction goes to the Fourth – but for me it’s the most musical. It’s very operatic: the ending of the third movement is like those Mozart operas where you get all the characters coming on stage, wanting to be heard. But the rest of the piece is more contained and intimate. Mozart is at his best when he’s writing simple melodies with incredible turns of harmony, and this piece has many such moments of magic.
Ruth Gipps: Horn Concerto
While every other composer on this list has tried to write idiomatically for the instrument, Ruth Gipps’s Concerto feels like she didn’t care about any of that. She had a musical idea in her head, and it just so happened that she wrote it for the horn. But as a result, she managed to push the technical capabilities of the instrument. And I like this notion of putting the music first and effectively saying to the performer, ‘Deal with it. Figure out a way to play this.’ After all, if Beethoven had listened to all the complaints about the ‘Eroica’ Symphony, it wouldn’t exist.
We named Ruth Gipps as one of the best English composers of all time.
Ligeti: Hamburg Concerto
All seven of the composers I’ve chosen manage to appreciate what a horn is while doing something new with it. Nobody more so than Ligeti. His Hamburg Concerto pits equal temperament and just intonation against one another, creating a sound world that is totally unique, because there is no better instrument for exploring the harmonic series. But there are other amazing musical characteristics like the sound of African bongos. The result is highly virtuosic and so much fun, with a sense of discovery.
Interview by Hannah Nepilova