Horn Repertoire by Women Composers
by Diana Ambache
I
n As You Like It Shakespeare said, “The horn, the horn, the
lusty horn, is not a thing to laugh to scorn.” No scorn here,
and possibly only a little laughter. Investigation has re-
vealed an amazing range of music for horn written by women.
Much of this music is being discovered and enjoyed. Some per-
formances can be found on Spotify and YouTube, and scores
in the public domain are on IMSLP (Petrucci Music Library).
The horn plays alone, with the piano and in other duets
with a remarkable variety of partners, in many different cham-
ber music combinations, and as soloist with ensembles.
Solo (horn alone)
Several solo works by European
and North American composers are
available. Orizzonte (Horizon, 1981)
by the Swedish organist Carin Malm-
löf-Forssling is described as among her
important compositions. The small set
of variations by Elizabeth Vercoe enti-
tled Corollaries was commissioned for
hornist Francis Massinon in 2007. Not-
withstanding the somewhat dry title
Text V, Olive
Vivienne’s piece
Carin Malmlöf-Forssling
describes a huge bull in the setting of a
calm Outer Hebrides landscape. Horn-
player and composer Lydia Lowery
Busler has written Appalachia (1992, par-
ticularly appreciated in New England
and described by Philadelphia Orches-
tra principal horn Jennifer Montone as
“evocative and thought provoking”);
her Fanfare & Processional (2002) is often
Lydia Lowery Busler
used for ceremonies.
Horn and Piano
The many compositions of horn with
piano include Ann Callaway’s 1974-77 co-
lourful evocation Four Elements: Wind Fan-
tasy, Water Portrait, Earth, Fire Music. Songs of
the Wolf by Andrea Clearfield was commis-
sioned by Frøydis Ree Wekre; it conjures up
mythology and the northern woods, along
with the spirit of the wolf. Jennifer Mon-
tone said it reminded her of Des Canyons aux Andrea Clearfield
Étoiles by Messiaen; perhaps nature touches
the eternal somewhere.
The Sonata by Jane Vignery is successful
in its use of horn effects (including stopping).
Edith Borroff wrote her Horn Sonata in 1954,
and Gina Branscombe’s 1956 descriptive
Pacific Sketches is actually in late-Roman-
tic style. Canadian composer Violet Archer
wrote her Horn Sonata when she was about
52, in 1965. British soloist Richard Watkins Violet Archer
42 The Horn Call – October 2018
has used the short and simple Two Pieces by Sofia Gubaidulina
as an encore.
Duets
The antiphonal fanfare duo of horn with trumpet Bells in
the Air, by Cecilia McDowall, was commissioned by the Fibo-
nacci Sequence in 2004. The score states that the two players
should be as far away as possible, so either side of a church
balcony would work well. It’s a short, effective work, suitable
for beginning a concert or the second half of a concert. Also
with trumpet (and piano), Elizabeth Raum’s The Bushwakker’s
Brewpub (2002) refers to the popular watering hole where mu-
sicians often gather after concerts in Regina (Saskatchewan,
Canada).
Amy Beach arranged her Children’s
Album, op. 36 for a pair of horns; it was orig-
inally for piano and comprises a Minuet, Ga-
votte, Waltz, March, and Polka. More recent
Americans writing for two horns include
Andrea Clearfield, Gina Gillie, television
composer Lynne Latham, and a Diverti-
mento by Karen Griebling. Amy Beach
Chamber music
The horn combines well with a variety of other instru-
ments; the 1930 Trio with flute and piano Scènes de la Fôret
by Mel Bonis is a delightful sequence of pictures in sound; it
starts with a Nocturne, then dawn, and a catholic Invocation,
and finally a hunt in Pour Artémis. Somebody could have fun
presenting this pictorial music by combining it with a painter
creating pictures at the same time!
Peggy Glanville Hicks, one of the most international of
Australian composers, wrote a trio, ti-
tled Sonata, for flute, harp, and horn
in 1950. She wrote, “It is apparent that
leisure and silence are absolute prereq-
uisites for composers if they are to en-
gage fully the many forms of awareness
involved in creative activity. This lei-
sure and silence have become the great-
est luxuries in the modern world, and
composers less than any other group in
Peggy Glanville Hicks art or science are able to command it.”
She has a combined melody-rhythm ap-
proach to composing, particularly suited to the harp playing
both melody and rhythm at the same time.
Johanna Senfter’s Trio, op. 103 for horn with clarinet and
piano, is in a late-romantic language. The scoring of the more
recent Sally Beamish St. Andrew’s Bones (with violin and piano
– 1997) might suggest it originated as a companion piece to
the Brahms Trio, but it clearly inhabits another world. She said
“St. Andrew’s Bones draws on three elements ‒ the 13th-cen-
tury hymn to St. Andrew, Vir Perfecte; the pitches of 9th-century
Scottish bronze bells; and the natural series of a medieval horn,

which opens the piece. In this context, the three instruments
begin to come together, creating for me a stark and poignant
echo across the centuries ‒ resonances of an ancient and pow-
erful devotion.”
Fired up by Matthew Arnold, A Victorian Garland (1966,
two singers, horn, and piano) illustrates Phyllis Tate’s plea-
sure in writing with verse. She said of
this composition, “Using the poems as
a kind of silhouette and preserving the
medium of the vocal duet popular in
Victorian times, I have tried to reflect
in today’s musical terms the differing
moods of the words: the first song fer-
vent yet controlled, the second lyrical,
the third evanescent and volatile.” An-
other, earlier, word-based piece of hers,
Songs of Sundry Natures (1945), is scored
Phyllis Tate for baritone with flute, clarinet, bassoon,
horn, and harp.
Numerous wind quintets range from the beautiful minia-
ture Pastorale by Beach, to more extended works by Bacewicz,
Doreen Carwithen, Ruth Crawford, Jennifer Higdon, Cecilia
McDowall, Geraldine Mucha, and Priaulx Rainier.
Among brass quintets are works
by Judith Bingham, Valerie Coleman,
Libby Larsen, Rhian Samuel, and Isi-
dora Zebeljan. Vitĕzslava Kaprálová, a
short-lived Czech, wrote Two Fanfares for
two horns, two trumpets, and timpani.
It dates from 1939, when she was 24;
anyone performing or recording it now Vitĕzslava Kaprálová
would probably be giving a modern
première.
Ensembles with solo instruments
Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz was imaginative, and
her Incrustations for horn and chamber ensemble is a mature
work (1965). It is a twin to her Trio for Oboe, Harp, and Percus-
sion; both works contain a quotation of the solo part of her 1955
Partita. It includes magical textures, with, perhaps, a slightly
impressionistic emphasis on atmosphere and tone colour, such
as a horn solo against deep percussion and harp ripples.
British women composers who have written horn solos
include the prolific Elizabeth Lutyens, Phyllis Tate, and Thea
Musgrave. Musgrave’s Night Music (1969) was a BBC commis-
sion; in it, the two horns are featured in a soloistic and dramatic
way. More unusually, Musgrave’s The Golden Echo is with either
16 horns or tape. (Desmond Tutu once
said “How could you have a soccer team
if all were goalkeepers? How would it be
an orchestra if all were French horns?”
He should hear this piece.) The music
explores stereophonic effects, with quite
a thick sound; it was commissioned
by the International Horn Society and
mixes lyrical and dramatic writing.
Diana Burrell describes her Chaconne:
“This little piece for horn and strings is
Thea Musgrave a chaconne, a form in which a repeating
Horn Repertoire by Women
series of chords underpins the architecture of the music. Often
rich and sensuous, occasionally distantly fragile, strong and
dramatic at the end, the chord series is repeated ten times by
the strings of the ensemble. The solo horn goes its own way,
overlaying the string sequence with bright ‘bell-like’ melodies,
but all the instruments come together in the simple contrapun-
tal lines of the short coda.”
The prolific and spirited composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
also wrote a Concerto with strings. The Zwilich Horn Con-
certo was co-commissioned by the Colorado Music Festival at
Vail Beaver Creek, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra, and David Jolley, to whom it is dedicated.
It was composed in 1993 and premiered that year in Vail at the
Bravo! Music Festival with David Jolley as soloist. The Roch-
ester paper commented, “Every turn reveals a new element in
the landscape: a change or character in the strings, a new color
effect in the horn.”
The music of the redoubtable Dame
Ethel Smyth was championed by Sir
Thomas Beecham and Sir Henry Wood;
the latter was the dedicatee of the Con-
certo for Violin and Horn and Orchestra.
Occasionally her music is described as
Brahmsian – this is definitely not; it’s in
her own meaty and expansive late-ro-
mantic language. Written when she was
nearly 70 in 1927, Smyth put her strong
and thoughtful character into the music. Ethel Smyhth
Richard Watkins played it in a BBC
Prom performance and said the slow movement (an Elegy In
Memoriam) was marvellous. The last movement is playful and
humorous, including some (surprising) horn chords in the ca-
denza. The unusual combination of soloists attracts interest.
Thea Musgrave’s fascination with dramatic-abstract mu-
sical ideas can been seen in her Horn Concerto (1971): she sta-
tions the orchestral horns around the concert hall. She said of
the work, “Here the dramatic idea concerns the relationship
of the solo horn to the orchestral brass (4 horns, 2 trumpets,
1 trombone) which form a concertante group set against the
rest of the orchestra. When they play it is to interrupt, distort,
and, as it were, to mock. Thus they break up the mood of the
opening Misterioso, come un sogno with their Parodia, con vi-
olenza and later overwhelm the Capriccioso section with wild
fanfares. (The percussion spread around the back of the orches-
tra also help to build this climax.) For this, the trumpets take
up new positions. Later the orchestral horns explore greater
stereophonic possibilities, when, in the last section, they move
so as to surround the solo horn, who mostly directs how they
should play.” The piece is dedicated to Barry Tuckwell.
The Katherine Hoover Concerto for Flute, Horn, and
Strings was premièred by the New York Concerto Orchestra
outdoors at Lincoln Centre in 1986. She wrote, “The flute and
horn are a rather mismatched pair in many ways. To let their
individual qualities sound, I began with a short soliloquy for
each. This is followed by a slow dance which grows out of the
soliloquies, and then a lively one, as the instruments (or char-
acters, or thoughts) meet and interact.”
Elizabeth Maconchy’s Variazioni Concertante creates in-
terplay between the oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn soloists
The Horn Call – October 2018 43
 Horn Repertoire by Women
(the same instrumentation as the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante
for Winds. It was written for a BBC Prom commission in 1965
and she relished the business of concertante writing for four
wind soloists. Despite a vigorous 5/8 finale, it actually ends
quietly!
As a horn player herself, it’s not too surprising that Tansy
Davies has written Forest, a concerto for four horns. Commis-
sioned by the (London) Philharmonia Orchestra in 2017, Rich-
ard Watkins took part in the première, and other performances.
He described it as fearsomely difficult. The music includes
hunting effects, unusual hand-stopping, and bending notes at
fast speeds. Davies uses the horns as a group to counterbalance
the orchestra; she said it combines traditional writing with
“thunk.” The music ranges from visceral and violent to dream-
like repose. The (London) Observer newspaper commented “It
was as if the composer had put her head to the ground and
recreated the roars and crackles of the forest.”
Elizabeth Lutyens wrote Chamber
Concerto IV for horn and small orches-
tra, Op. 8, No. 4 (1946) for Dennis Brain,
who one American critic described as
“the only man who has the right to blow
his own horn.” He championed a lot of
new music; indeed, Britten’s Serenade for
Tenor, Horn and Strings was composed
at a request from him. He was notori-
ously careless and Britten autographed Elizabeth Lutyens
one score “For Dennis – in case he loses
the other one.”
Frank Lloyd gave the première of Ruth Gipps’s Concerto,
has shown that audiences often remark afterwards on how
they enjoyed the “discovery.”
The physicist Albert Einstein has said that great spirits
have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. If
it sometimes seems that prejudice and neglect are directed par-
ticularly at music by women, we should remember that there
are also a large number of generally unknown works by men;
in sheer numbers, through time, women composers have never
been as numerous as men. Some works are used in competi-
tions, some get performed and recorded and get a longer life.
Frøydis Ree Wekre points out that if all performers who are
close to the composers in question include them in their pro-
grammes, chances do increase for the best of all these works to
surface and get more attention.
Diana Ambache is a pianist who
founded the Ambache Chamber Orches-
tra and has been researching, perform-
ing, recording, and publicising music by
women. See womenofnote.co.uk and am-
bachecharitabletrust.org/. Contact Diana
at diana@ambache.co.uk.

sa e dat
th
ve e
op. 58 (written for her son Lance Baker in 1968). She had what’s
now called a “portfolio career,” including also being an oboist,
lecturer, teacher, and choral conductor. Her music had person-
ality and invention and has been well received; indeed, David
Pyatt recorded this concerto for Lyrita
and described it as both highly acces-
sible and extremely difficult for the so-
loist (some very high, some very low, Call for presenters & performers: opens 6/1/2018
and some very fast music). It’s a tonal
work, warm-hearted and attractive,
and includes a fresh and quick-think- COMPETITIONS
ing Scherzo. The finale includes some The International Women's Brass Conference invites all genders
inspired changes of texture and tempo, to enter the competitions. Up to $40K in prizes will be awarded.
with a highly original duet for horn and
celeste, where time stands still. Select past winners include:
Ruth Gipps
Hana Beloglavec James Miller Karin Bliznik
Performances Vanessa Fralick
Adam Frey
Benjamin Pierce
Kristy Morrell
JoAnn Lamolino
Colin Williams
Quite often promoters are not keen to include music that
isn’t in the standard repertoire. It can be difficult to introduce
the horn in chamber music concerts. Indeed, programming For more info, visit myiwbc.org
these lesser-known works isn’t always easy; some composers
have suffered from the prejudice about women’s abilities. So, @iwbc_brass
we have to believe in what we want people to hear and have /intlwomensbrassconference
the courage to persuade the organisers to include the “new”
(often old) and unfamiliar. We also have a responsibility to
sa dat

composers to represent them fully and characterfully; how we

ve e

serve them affects the success of the whole venture. Experience

th
e

44 The Horn Call – October 2018