Gavin Higgins: Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air & Flourishes for solo horn

Featuring

Ben Goldscheider
Jaime Martín
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Gavin Higgins

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Composition History

The Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourishes mark the first time Gavin Higgins has highlighted his own instrument, the French horn, in a solo capacity.

Composer Biography

Gavin Higgins, the composer, grew up in a working-class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with its own dialect.

Compositional Technique

The Horn Concerto is structured as a triptych, with movements titled 'Understorey,' 'Overstorey,' and 'Mycelium Rondo,' each representing different layers and aspects of a forest.

Composition History

The Horn Concerto was inspired by an approach from horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, which reconnected composer Gavin Higgins with his own past as a horn player.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Composer Gavin Higgins's music is deeply influenced by his upbringing, with themes of land, community, family, and the sounds of the forest and brass bands from his childhood often appearing in his work.

Composer Biography

Gavin Higgins began playing the cornet as a child and later moved to the orchestral French horn after receiving a scholarship to a specialist music school.

Compositional Technique

The Horn Concerto is written in E-flat, a key famously used by composers like Mozart and Strauss for their horn concertos, and expands the solo horn's sound by relating it prominently to an orchestral horn quartet.