Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Traditional Tuesday: Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead (horn perspective)

My horn teacher excitedly shared about this piece at my lesson last week which led to me listening to it over the weekend. The piece is based on a portrait by Arnold Bocklin, both are dark in nature and appropriate for laying the mood as we head towards Halloween.

Here are some horn highlights:

Horn solo at 1:06 has wild leaps, I like the facial expressions this soloist uses. The smallest change in embouchure can drastically effect the pitch.

Tutti horn just before 3:00 into english horn

Brass sounds including horn around 4:20

[so much building]

about 4:50 a nice horn 'yawn'

at 6:05 or so the horn responds to the woodwind calls, so mellow the perfect echo

around 9:10 more brass, including horn as things are building with tympani accenting the phrases

by 9:44 horns are ascending into a climax that lands on the flute and pizzacato strings and other high woodwinds

10:20 more horn yawns

at 10:55 the brass play a dark reverent chorale with string responding

the orchestra is working things out together

I spot on the video the horns and then I notice an arpeggio-ic line about 13:25

13:50ish we see trombones on the video and also hear horns with a bit of a fanfare featurette

just before 15:00 the horns help with the ascending of  the orchestra offering some counter tension

17:40 horns enter after a quieter section (that was after a climatic moment) with a lovely horn filled chord, church organ like, continue-ing to build with entrances/exits somewhat like their Wolf persona in Peter and the Wolf 

21:40 the horns lay down long foundational sounds

the final horn chord begin the final quiet sounds of the orchestra



No comments:

Post a Comment