In this installment of the series Soloists of the Canadian Brass,
Jeff Nelson is featured in
Brahms' Horn Trio, Op. 40, and an adaptation of
Mozart's Horn Quintet, K. 407. The novelty here is Tony Rickard's arrangement for horn, violin, and piano of
Mozart's quintet, originally for horn, violin, two violas, and cello. The horn trio is a felicitous ensemble, but its established repertoire is lamentably small; besides the
Brahms, the trios by Ligeti and
Lennox Berkeley are the only ones played with much regularity, so any viable addition to their company is welcome. Rickard's version is a fairly literal adaptation; it's hard to imagine having the nerve to stray far from
Mozart's original, but it's also hard to imagine that
Mozart would not have created a more inventive keyboard part if he had written it for piano. Still, it's an entirely serviceable and even graceful version, and one that deserves to be taken up by ensembles looking for a companion piece for the
Brahms.
The
Brahms gets off to an unpromising start.
Nelson and violinist
Ik-Hwan Bae play with impeccable technique and plenty of style and feeling, but pianist Naomi Kudo's inflexible, plodding, practically clipped execution of the exposition threatens to sink the enterprise. Happily, by the second movement, she seems to have found her stylistic footing, and the three remaining movements are superb, even thrilling at the climactic moments. The ensemble's playing in the
Mozart is appropriately more restrained, always gracefully and elegantly phrased. The tastefulness of
Nelson's cadenza might be questionable, but overall the performance makes a strong case for this new version of the work.
Nelson plays a modern valve horn rather than the natural horn for which both works were written, as would be expected for a player who is not an early music specialist, and the expertise and panache of his performance should satisfy listeners who are not purists about the use of valve horns. The sound is full, warm, and clear, and the balance is generally good.