“Concertos for Corno da Caccia” = ZELENKA: Capriccio for Two Corni da Caccia, Two Oboes, Bassoon, Strings, and Basso Continuo No. 5 in G Major; JOHANN VALENTIN RATHGEBER: Concerto for Corno da Caccia, Strings, and Basso Continuo in C Major, Op. 6 No. 19; VIVALDI: Concerto for Two Corni da Caccia, Strings, and Basso Continuo in F Major RV 539; FASCH: Concerto for Two Corni da Caccia, Two Oboes, Bassoon, Strings, and Basso Continuo in D Major; JOHANNES MATTHIAS SPERGER: Concerto for Corno da Caccia in D Major – Ludwig Güttler and Kurt Sandau, corno da caccia / Virtuosi Saxoniae – Berlin Classics 030041BC [Distr. by Allegro], 53:43 ****:
Those who insist on authentic instruments and scrupulous period-authentic practice can stop reading now (and believe me, I sympathize with you, up to a point). Those who aren’t such sticklers, consider: Ludwig Güttler is a celebrated virtuoso on trumpet and corno da caccia, as well as a highly respected scholar and teacher. So while these recordings, set down in the 1980s, don’t represent the be-all and end-all in Baroque performance practice, they’re virtuosic in the extreme and highly enjoyable in their own right.
In preparing to write this review, I did some Internet browsing of a forum wherein trumpet players hashed out issues relating to the corno da caccia. The modern instrument resembles a tiny French horn and has French horn–style valves, though it has a trumpet-like timbre. The corno da caccia for which Zelenka and Vivaldi wrote, of course, would have been a valveless instrument resembling in looks and sound the traditional hunting horn. One writer on the trumpet forum dismissed the modern instrument as being unsuitable for performances of Baroque music and opined that trumpet players should stick to their own instrument and let horn players play parts for corno da caccia on the real thing. So the debate goes on; presumably, there are still some who, like Ludwig Güttler, play this old music on the modern corno da caccia.
I doubt that many play it as well as Güttler. His playing has an alternately aching sweetness and ringing, declamatory tone that are a delight to hear whatever strictures you place on performance practice. Besides, scholar that he is, there is no Romantic dawdling or point making over cadences and such; he and the Virtuosi Saxoniae play with verve and precision.
There are more recent, and thus more period-authentic, versions of the Zelenka and Vivaldi concertos to choose from, and they have their points. Of the other, less well-known concertos on the present disc, I’m happiest to make the acquaintance of Sperger’s concerto. Sperger (1750-1812) was a Viennese virtuoso on the double bass but also a composer of church music, chamber music, and concertos for brass. His Concerto for Corno da Caccia, written for the Classical orchestra complete with trumpets and timpani, has a stately first movement, a slow movement of near-Mozartian delicacy, and a lively last movement with resonances of the hunt. It’s very appealing music.
Given the quality of the playing, plus the chance to experience some fine music you won’t hear otherwise, this nicely recorded disc is worth exploring—as long as, like me, you can enjoy well-executed departures from the absolutely authentic.
– Lee Passarella
