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I Found My Horn: One Man's Struggle With The Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument (2008)

by Jasper Rees(Favorite Author)

3.77 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0297852256 (ISBN13: 9780297852254)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

review 1: A suspense story: journalist and old Harrovian who played the horn in school then dropped it is seized by the desire at age 40 to resume it and master it so that he can play a solo with orchestra at a public concert to which people pay admission in one year from then. He settles on the Mozart K. 447 This is akin to taking up rock climbing at age 30 and planning to do a maor North Face in teh Alps inside a year. The author comes across as good-humored, self-deprecating, humble but also pushy in seeking advice and moral support. He could not have done this without pushing. I had not known just how hard this instrument is to play; for example, much of the player reads has to be transposed at sight.Weaknesses: I thought there was a bit too much of hunting horn history and t... moreoo much about plumbing and drainage of the horn. 10% more on horn technique than I wanted. Un-necessary, mild ritual put-downs of all musicians who don't play the horn as slackers.Strengths:Piercing insight into the sad fact that it's so darn much harder to make music with others than alone. Enjoyable musical history about Mozart. Good, suitably awed portrait of Dennis Brain, whose iconic recording of the four Mozart concertos was one of the first classical records I listened to over and over. I was hoping for a little story on the first (and I think only) Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival, which featured Brain playing a garden hose. Didn't get that one.Nice vignettes of the many people who helped on the quest.Anyone reconnecting to an instrument in adulthood or taking one up de novo then will enjoy this tale. I will shelve it under humor and also adventure non-fiction, though it's not adventure in the usual sense.
review 2: This represents the dream of most of our Walter Mitty selves. I was in my mid-thirties when my son took up the trombone in school and, wanting to help him out, started French Horn lessons at the college where I worked. 20 years later he had long given up the trombone and I, after 15 years, gave up the French Horn, tiring (lazy, I guess) of the requirement to play every single day for 45 minutes to an hour just to maintain some flexibility in the lips. Skipping a couple days would set you back a week. I guess I also tired of being mediocre. I was what most would consider competent, good enough to play with local orchestras, but to get really good you have to practice hours daily. I did have the advantage of having played piano and organ for years so at least I didn't have to learn to read music. The worst part was transposing on the fly. I look forward to reading how Rees did. Got to admire his courage. less

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