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The speed of an Allegro moderato was around 108 while a faster speed of Allegro vivace was 116-120. By today's standards this is quite tame. Unfortunately, when an artist attempts to revert to a more leisurely tempo of 18th century performance practice, listeners are often critical of the artist.

It is tragic that so many younger hornists subistitute brilliance of speed for the graceful elegance of style that classical concerti possess. While it is easy for younger hornists to "play the notes" of such pieces, it is much more difficult to effectively perform the correct style with the utmost control.

Seasoned professionals learn a healthy respect for the classisists, as the more polished ones technique becomes, the more one needs to refine the approach to such music.

Another pitfall for musicians is the lack of attention to rhythm in classical works. If you notice, thematic material is composed of a variety of note values, almost the entire gamut. (eg. whole note, half note, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, etc.) It is essential to possess a well-defined internal metronome so as to spin out these phrases without accelerating through short note figures. While some rhythmic license may be used at phrase endings, it should always be subtle. However, many times I have observed lack of attention on such details; this destroys the spirit of this cerebral music.

It is also not wise to pare down ones dynamics when approaching classical concerti. To be sure, there are times when a little "muscle" is desired in the sound. The point of departure for modern performance should rest with the capabilities of the natural horn. High register passages and other aggressive spots should be approached with a healthy tone, but not with the same qualities as one would when playing Strauss or Hindemith. Some passages written for the natural instrument are very demanding, requiring the utmost stamina for the natural hornist. On such passages, we need to approach this accordingly.

Of particular interest in the choice of tempos on the final rondo movements. All "four" require different tempos because of their style. The slowest, and most elegant is the finale from the Concerto No. 1 (this is especially evident if you are looking at the newly discovered (expanded)version [This is available in the Tuckwell/Schirmer edition, as well as from Breitkopf and Hartel-sold as Rondo in D]. The fastest finale is the third, with its rapid-fire repeated notes; this a a rollicking, good humored romp. In between comes the concert rondo, the finale of the second concerto, and the finale of the fourth.

While all the Eb rondos retain certain common features, the style of each is quite different. This requires the utmost taste and musical maturity of the hornist. The gentle swagger and the playful stop and start ending of the second concerto takes careful planning. The fourth concerto finale features a multiplicity of thematic styles reminiscent of a "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" approach; one moment boistrous, the next moment the most graceful legato.

It is interesting to find the vast amount of recordings available of these concerti. While, there is much common ground, take the time to compare how the individual artists reconcile prescribed classic style with their own interpretations.

Especially noteworthy is the discography information included in Prof. Hans Pizka's book Das Horn bei Mozart. This volume deserves serious attention >from all professional and student hornists. Prof. Pizka lists various recordings including performance tempi of the individual movements. For those hornists who will be competing in solo competitions, these may very well be some eye-opening guidelines for you to consider.

The quickest way to unimpress John was to rip through things too fast...

Let me offer, however, an additional and admittedly musicological view: tmepo markings such as "allegro" were essential a creation of the early 18th century Italian boys, especially Corelli, and one can safely assume that when Corelli wrote "allegro" on a piece of music, he had in mind the Italian meaning of the word--to wit, "happy." Consider Milton's poetic twins "Il Pensiero" and L'Allegro." It is only over time and geography that the Italian term loses this sense of happiness and moves to the musical sense of quick (though still not lickety-split). In other words, the closer one gets to the early 18th century, the more closely one must pay attention to the literal meaning of the Italian terms IMHO.

Moreover, I would guess that for a 20th-century Italian composer, the terms probably have not gained both a speicfic non-music meaning and a specific music meaning--that is, I bet Verdi is still thinking "happy" to a large extent when he writes "allegro" regardless of whether he may also be thinking "quick." I mean, we're talking about his everyday speech here, not just terms he encounters on sheet music like the rest of us.

Furthermore (boy, I love this pseudo-lawyer tone I've taken up this evening!), I think literate composers since the 18th century are aware of the diversity of meanings (musical and literal) that tempo and affect terms in any language carry and will choose such terms carefully to take advantage of all nuances of meaning. Now, trying to determine which ones are the *literate* composers may be something of a challenge....

Hope this sheds some more light.

I noticed someone suggested that Brain's tempos had something to do with 18th century hand-horn tempos. While we players of modern instruments may find playing the hand horn cumbersome, there was a 200-year oId tradition of hand horn technique handed down generation to generation which ended with the addition of crooks and valves. So, none of us really knows how the Mozart concerti were performed in Mozart's day. For certain, while some will justify slower "hand-horn" tempos for Mozart's concertos, the same players will add cadenzas which are very much out of character for hand-horn playing. I doubt very seriously that any of the concerti cadenzas Norman Del Mar wrote for Brain could have easily been played on the hand horn.

Finally, I have never heard anyone refer to Dennis Brain as an expert in Mozart. I've heard some refer to the late conductor Karl Boehm as a Mozart expert, but not Brain. In his wonderful recordings of the Mozart Symphonies, you will not hear Karl Boehm take the same approach to tempos that Brain took. However, Music is an art form which is interpreted by the performer. Dennis Brain had the right to bring whatever interpretation he chose to the music, although the tempos he chose were doubtfully chosen because of a higher knowledge of Mozart or any consideration for an 18th century performance approach.

K412/514: Allegro-Allegro (Mozart's allegro does not mean "Allegro molto" but mostly "Allegro ma non troppo") 110-126/68-88, while D.Brain used 124/78

K417: Allegro maestoso (sic !!!!)-Andante-Rondo allegro: 110-126/60-96/86-118, while D.Brain used 118/78/98 (Karajan) or 122/78/106 (Suesskind - not Suskind, as several writers mistakingly wrote this name)

K447: Allegro-Romanze (Larghetto - but it is alla breve)-Allegro: 114-126/52-84/96-136, while D.Brain used 116/68/118

K.495: Allegro moderato (sic !!!!)-Romanze (Andante) - Rondo (Allegro vivace): 106-126/48-74/106-132, while D.Brain used 120/54/128 (with DelMar as conductor, himself a horn player), 116/60/122 (with Karajan).

Sorry, I have not the time to check the speed at Hoegner's recordings for Deutsche Grammophone, Karl Boehm conbducting, but I can provide the comparison of the total time of the following recordings:

Guenther Hoegner/Karl Boehm versus Dennis Brain/Karajan

	Hoegner	Brain
K.412	5:17	4:36
K.514	3:42	3:36
K.417-1	6:41	6:31
K.417-2	3:59	3:30
K.417-3	3:23	3:33
K.447-1	6:56	6:58
K.447-2	4:36	4:53
K.447-3	3:51	3:43
K.495-1	8:32	8:05
K.495-2	5:02	4:29
K.495-3	4:03	3:35

Brain again: K.417 under Hindemith 6:38 - 3:12 - 3:32 (compared with the Karajan redcording, the outer movements are just at the same speed: 7 sec/1 sec faster under Hindemith, the 2nd mov is 18 sec slower). This recording of a live concert atr Baden-Baden 1948 played upon his Raoux is on the historic recordings vol.2 from my company HPE)

By the way, Hoegner is always slower than Dennis Brain except K.417 last movement (to be played faster than the usual Rondo tempo, according to Viennese tradition) and K.447 first & second movement. But the first movement differs only about 2 sec. The second movement is 17 sec. faster.

There should be a comment: many readers forget the important fact, that concert soloist & principal horn player are completely different professions. A excellent principal horn player is not necessarily a "soliste de classe", and a fine concert soloist is not necessarily a good leader of an orchestral horn section. Keep that in mind, please.

Why do I dare a very special opinion ? Well, I have just completed 40 years of playing principal horn professionally & had my 40th anniversary of my first appearance as soloist of a Mozart Concerto (K.495) with professional orchestra, but I have still another 10 years to go until retirement & I still do masny great concerts with internationally known orchestras. Further, I have played under Karl Boehm several hundred times (only Fidelio 80-times !) with Mozart, Strauss, Bizet, Wagner, Beethoven, Bruckner , etc. I also have played under Herbert von Karajan. So you might concede to me, to have a certain opinion about the right or better said the appropriate tempi.

Back to the main thematic: we can find the followings: Dennis Brain was quite in the upper speed at K.412, middle speed at K.514, just middle speed at K.417/1mov (Suesskind) & faster than miuddle speed (Karajan), just middle speed K.417/2mov (Suesskind & Karajan), lower than middle tempo K.417/3mov (Karajan) or much faster than middle tempo K.417/3mov (Suesskind), lower speed at K447/1mov, middle at K447/2mov, passing up the middle speed at K447/3mov., over the middle at K.495/1mov, slower than middle at K.495/2mov, upper third in speed of K.495/3mov.

I might give you one advise: if you discuss these things, be careful to use exact data not only blah, blah, blahhhhhhh. And if you can discuss only in a two dimensional way or black & white (speed, dynamic), you will distinguish yourself as unmusical. Punctum ! Music is more , much more. Listen more carefully to Dennis Brain's recordings, then you will know it. Listen to Herbert von Karajan's recording, then you will feel his love for the music. Sorry for you, if you cannot feel that, very sorry. The same is it with Dennis Brain.

However, those who suggest that they know what tempos were taken in Mozart's works by quoting metronome markings is, again, a bit far fetched. The metronome wasn't invented until Beethoven's time, and metronome markings weren't standardized until after Beethoven's death. The fact is, none of us really knows for sure.

(Indeed, I prefer Tuckwell's original rec. of Strauss 2 to Brain's, but that doesn't mean I don't own or haven't listened to Brain's with a great deal of care! BTW: so far as I know Tuckwell's original rec. is no longer available, since he made a much more recent recording for a CD that came out a few yrs ago--more's the pity.)

Dennis Brain was acclaimed as "the perfect Mozartian" by, I think, a prominant critic or conductor, of the day. Someone will have to check the book.

Einstein was widely acclaimed as a Mozart expert and he (tried to) catalog what we know as the Mozart 1 in D (not actually the first written, as what we know as #3 was actually first written) with the fragment in E, an impossible mess.

Who cares what 'experts' say? It is everyone's personal opinion that matters to them. My opinion about Brain's Mozart interpretations is that they are more appealing to me than anyone else's that I have heard. To me, he was a Mozart expert!

We should enjoy this performance in context, remembering that it precedes our 1990's interest in authentic performance, Dennis having given in to technology and moved onto an Alex single Bb horn with its wide German Bore and its reliable rotary valves (by comparison to his Raoux piston valve pea shooter)

Many of us will have listened to this recording as we made our first approach to Mozart and are now looking for a new way to play Mozart, I hope the quest for different performances continues; and I will always enjoy listening to new recordings,

BUT this recording is a time capsule, it gives us an acoustic window into Europe vintage 1955 and lets us hear the musicality of performers who's lives were very different to our own. Dennis Brain used a sensitivity of tone and rythm that is unique, and I hope this recording continues to inspire horn players to find their own way with Mozart.

While there are some tricks which I don't understand that can change pitch without altering tempo, or vice-versus, I doubt they would have been used in this case - why would one want the pitch to "droop". My guess is the recording speed varied a bit, so both the tempo and pitch changed.

It might be interesting to sample that track off the CD into a decent computer audio-editing program, then speed it up slightly to match the pitch at the beggining of the concerto... or since you can't really trust that either, to whatever pitch you think it was recorded at. It would be interesting to see what this does to the choice of tempi.

Of course you can figure it out without actually making the change. A half step increase in pitch (to bring it back up to Eb) would raise the tempo by about (2^(1/12)-1) or 5.9%

But please now, do not mix your personal opinion , which I also respect, into a discussion about facts. Do not use the personal freedom (to develop yourself in your special way) to develop abstruse taste & to believe yourself being beautiful (as a person, as a player, as musician, your style, etc., your composition). Keep your feet on the bottom, not upside down. Do not use your own words to confirm your thesis !! Like a snake biting into the own tail. Good taste has nothing to do with personal preferences. (Look at the choice of colors of the dresses in certain countries ????? How ugly ? One can distinguish certain nations after the taste of dressings !! You understand ?? Colors depend on frequencies of the light, sound depends upon certain frequencies of sound waves. Harmonies in the music or in the colors depend upon the relations between them. This is a fact and not personal preference. If you cannot understand that, who can help you ??? This also can apply to tempo relation (How to become a good conductor ???). Quality has nothing to do with personal preferences. If it does, fine for you. Gratulations. But, please, quit with silly sabber, sabber, blah, blah like children playing with dog's excrements, because they are so easy to form......