Last night we aired for the first time the Brahms Horn Trio with Jacob Garniez on natural horn and some superior violin playing by Gregor Kitzis. The listeners were mostly musicians, but not all players of the same instruments or styles. When we finished they were stunned into a kind of silence, which surprised us a bit because the last movement of the work is downright hilarious.
Did we do something wrong? Why weren't they simply overcome with laughter?
Then they began to talk about how marvelous it felt to be in the presence of such a compelling sound.
They had observed, we were happy to hear, that the sounds of both violin and piano were contained within the sound of the horn so as not to force compliance with this "otherness" but rather to allow it to embrace our instruments.
All in all an extremely happy and very promising occasion.
