Regarded as one of Europe’s leading horn players, Martin Owen appears as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. Currently principal horn at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he has previously served as principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and as solo horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Weber’s Concertino was written for the old, valveless ‘natural horn’; its limited range of notes (tied to the harmonic series) was extended mechanically with additional tubing (‘crooks’) and, more artfully, by virtuoso players bending notes, and varied hand stopping. The technical demands of the Concertino are testament to the extraordinary facility of the hornists of the period.

The First Horn Concerto by Richard Strauss, written at the age of nineteen, whilst a student, is widely considered his first uncontested masterpiece. Although the influence of Brahms and Schumann are evident, his own compositional voice is unmistakable. Strauss would continue to write significant parts for horn in all of his orchestral scores (possibly an influence of his father, who was a virtuoso hornist), but the Second Concerto was not composed until 1942 – some sixty years later. The style is much more neo-classical, even ‘Mozartian’.

Schumann’s riotous Concertstück for four horns opens the programme, and features three more outstanding soloists: Christopher Parkes (Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia of London), Alec Frank-Gemmill (Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), and Sarah Willis (Berliner Philharmoniker).

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Schumann - Concertstück, Op. 86. Lebhaft -
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Schumann - Concertstück, Op. 86. Romanze. Ziemlich langsam, doch nicht schleppend -
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Schumann - Concertstück, Op. 86. Sehr lebhaft
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Weber - Concertino, Op. 45, J 188. Adagio - Andante -
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Weber - Concertino, Op. 45, J 188. Andante con moto -
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Weber - Concertino, Op. 45, J 188. Recitativo -
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Weber - Concertino, Op. 45, J 188. Polacca
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R Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, TrV 117. Allegro -
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R Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, TrV 117. Andante -
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R Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, TrV 117. Allegro - Rondo
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R Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 2, TrV 283. Allegro -
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R Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 2, TrV 283. Andante con moto
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R Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 2, TrV 283. Rondo. Allegro molto

Europadisc Review

For his debut album with Chandos (the first in a planned series of projects) the outstanding British horn player Martin Owen has selected a programme of concertante works which chart the development of the instrument in the German-speaking lands through the 19th and early 20th centuries. Owen is currently principal horn of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Britten Sinfonia, having previously occupied the same position for ten years at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Regarded as one of Europe’s leading horn players, he has also been guest principal with the Berlin Philharmonic. On this disc, the range of his artistry is on ample display in a veritable cornucopia (pun most definitely intended!) of staggering horn playing.

Partnered throughout by the BBC Philharmonic under the baton of John Wilson, the programme gets off to a suitably rousing start with Schumann’s spectacularly energising Concertstück for four horns (1849). For this, Owen is joined by three most distinguished colleagues: Christopher Parkes (solo horn of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra), Alec Frank-Gemmill (Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and a former BBC New Generation Artist), and Sarah Willis (Berlin Philharmonic, and known to collectors for her genre-busting Mozart y Mambo series on Alpha). And what a glorious sound they make together! This is one of those works – like Schumann’s own ‘Rhenish’ Symphony – that hits the ground running, its outer movements full of scarcely-contained ebullience which calls for seat-of-the-pants virtuosity from all four players.

Originally performed by the mid-19th-century Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s four horn players, the Concertstück has received several notable recordings over the years, but this starry, full-throated line-up ranks with the best of them, supported by incisive playing from the BBC Philharmonic. Although compact, the work has symphonic pretensions lurking beneath the flashy surface, nowhere more so than in the wonderfully inward central Romanze, where Owen and his colleagues produce a marvellously blended cantabile sound. Caught between the two spectacular outer movements, the Romanze could easily be overshadowed, yet this performance unfailingly captures the quintessentially Schumannesque melancholy of the moment with unfailing musicality.

After this gripping opening, the programme moves back several decades to Weber’s similarly compact Concertino in E minor for horn and orchestra (1806, revised 1815), another work that makes a far bigger impact than its modest dimensions (an introduction and three short movements running continuously) might suggest. Although written for the natural horn, this work makes extreme demands – both technical and expressive – of the soloist, and Owen’s rock-steady tone coupled with splendid breath control and winning way with articulation and phrasing bring out all its multifaceted strengths. Above all, it’s his expressive musicality that strikes the listener, most obviously in the astonishing central, monologue-like Recitativo, with its cadenza calling for multiphonics (simultaneous blowing and humming, producing two notes at once). Owen absolutely nails this movement, both technically and expressively, after which the concluding Polacca comes as superbly-poised light relief.

The rest of the disc is taken up with Richard Strauss’s two Horns Concertos, composed sixty years apart in 1882–83 and 1942, the First by the still teenaged composer for his virtuoso horn-player father Franz, the Second by the mature composer with a string of tone-poems and operas behind him, and dedicated to his father’s memory. Both works date from periods when Strauss was writing in ‘absolute’ genres rather than the programme music and stage works for which he is best remembered, and many commentators have detected in them a Mozartian flavour. Yet Stephen Johnson, in his excellent booklet notes, traces the heritage more plausibly to Schumann and Brahms, and it’s the 19th-century Romantic aspect that, in the context of the album as a whole, comes through most clearly in these performances.

The First Concerto has a Schumannesque effervescence to its outer movements, coupled with a Mendelssohnian lightness. After the opening orchestral chord, Owen unfurls the soloist’s bold opening fanfare passage with magnificent rhetorical skill, while the singing tone he brings to the more cantabile passages is spellbinding. Once again, it’s the slow movement – here, a dreamy Andante – that is the emotional heart of this compact work, and Owen’s sensitively shaded playing in partnership with the BBC Philharmonic’s wind players is a highlight of the disc. The concluding Rondo is marvellously upbeat, with a tangible Leipzig-school flavour to it, the orchestra keenly supportive of the soloist.

The Second Horn Concerto was composed by Strauss during the dark days of World War II when he was witnessing the destruction of the civilisation he held dear. The retreat to happier times and a genre unconcerned with programmatic associations might suggest a retrograde step, yet this is a work infused with both vibrant inventiveness and the experience of a seasoned opera composer and conductor. The wistfulness that characterises so much of Strauss’s late music is here, coupled with a lightly-worn sensuality that is profoundly moving. Once again, it is Owen’s command of cantabile as much as his virtuosity and varied articulation in faster passages that impresses, and the way he slips into ‘support mode’ against the orchestral solos in the central Andante con moto is a lesson in itself. The positively acrobatic passagework that tinges the closing Rondo recalls the carefree abandon of the early tone poems: the mature Strauss has great fun toying with tempo and theme changes, and so, one feels, does Owen. The final payoff, where the orchestra calls time on proceedings but the soloist is determined to get in the last word, is brilliantly done.

With first-class support from Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic, captured in vivid sound by the Chandos team, this is an outstanding disc from Martin Owen which will gladden the hearts of those who appreciate top-quality wind-playing everywhere. The programme itself is enormously satisfying, and these performances rank with the very finest from the past (Dennis Brain included!). All in all, it’s a most auspicious label debut, and we look forward to hearing more from this supremely gifted player in the near future. A horn of plenty indeed!