Brahms and Horn

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 534, 16 September 1949, Page 11

Brahms and Horn

N_ excellent performance of the Brahms trio for violin, horn and piano was given from 2YA by Francis Rosner, Peter Glen, and Wainwright Morgan. The horn dictates the feeling of almost the whole trio, the romantic opening movement, which Brahms said came to him in the Bavarian pine-woods,

the bright scherzo with its repeated notes, and the hunting association of the last movement. All three players did remarkably well; technically their performance was of the highest merit. I thought the first movement was not quite. romantic enough for my taste, and the frio of the sclerzo hardly floated effortlessly enough, but © otherwise I could make no criticism of the playing. But as so often happens, the sinister hand of the control room lay across the performance, The -balance was very poor; piano and violin: when alone were in excellent balance, but as soon as the horn entered it was always much too prominent, and far too near the microphone. For example, in the staccato passage at bar 81 in the scherzo (which horn and violin have together) the Violin simply disappeared in the horn tone as it did in several other passages. In the opening bars of the slow movement one heard what the balance should be. Every trio broadcast is really a quartet, three players and control panel. In this case the *fourth member was not up to the other three.

D.

M.