Saturday’s concert in Die Glocke, Bremen with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie was a very British meeting of minds. Ben Goldscheider performed not one, but two French horn works: Mozart’s Horn Concerto no. 4 in E flat major and the German premiere of a new concerto from Huw Watkins, all with British conductor Duncan Ward at the helm.
The orchestral introduction to the Mozart set the mood with clean sophisticated phrasing. Goldscheider’s tone blended perfectly with DKam and was matched seamlessly by their horns. His attention to the maxim “play the little notes”, resulted in a very detailed interpretation. No mean feat when performed at this brisk tempo.
Returning after the interval, Goldscheider launched into Huw Watkins’ Horn Concerto, which was jointly commissioned with the Britten Sinfonia, Kölner Philharmonie and Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. Written following a recent collaboration celebrating the legacy of British horn player Dennis Brain, Watkins sought to explore the extremities of the horn’s register, never more so than in the opening tricky octave leaps. Billowing triplets and cross rhythms challenged orchestra and soloist alike resulting in an ocean of swirling waves, tossing and tumbling as all headed for shore.
A melancholic oboe gave time for reflection in the Lento before passing to the horn. Lush harmonies, devoid of consonance or dissonance, neither heading towards nor returning from a destination, proliferated. The romantic lyricism of Goldscheider’s final obligato over sustained string chords, evidenced his huge dynamic range, always perfectly controlled and effortless.
The Allegro took off at quite a lick. Full of interplay between horn and an evocative clarinet, and then trumpet, never-ending scales in the instruments’ upper registers challenged all. Watkins grabbed the attention of performer and listener alike, developing distinct instrumental timbres before passing them on, but now in a new register. DKam accepted the challenge creating some beautiful colours, but even the orchestral horns struggled to reach those high notes and match Goldscheider’s technical prowess. To those who may consider Watkins’ work to be angular or even ‘12-tone music’, his very distinctive harmonic language felt fresh and alive. Dissonances sometimes resolved, but not perhaps as expected. Others were just left hanging. This most attractive concerto is a crowd pleaser and deserves to quickly become a staple in the horn repertoire.