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One last time, from the top - Barry Tuckwell is a great horn player. And he's retiring before anyone can say otherwise, he tells Michael Wright

By MICHAEL WRIGHT

KNOWING when to retire is never easy. And presumably it is more difficult when you have been labelled the leading horn player of your generation (Grove Dictionary of Music), and are still bowling along at the peak of your career.

Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1931, Barry Tuckwell is the most recorded horn player in the world, with more than 45 recordings and three Grammy nominations to his credit. More than 20 works have been written for him by leading contemporary composers including Oliver Knussen and Richard Rodney Bennett.

His orchestral career dates back to the age of 15, when he joined the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra a year after picking up the instrument that would dominate his life. Since then, Tuckwell has built his reputation as the best of the best on a combinati on of natural ability and dogged self-criticism. The latter springs to the fore as he considers his farewell tour (and musical future) at the age of 65. 'It occurred to me to make this decision to retire when I was performing Oliver Knussen's horn con certo in Cleveland. It is the most beautiful concerto: a great gift to the horn world, and in particular to me. I saw the performances that were in the diary: Boston, the Proms, the Helsinki Festival, Baltimore, Toronto, and so on. And I thought: I'm 65. This is perhaps the top of my career.

Isn't this the time to leave it, rather than waiting, waiting and waiting perhaps for things to decline? 'I didn't relish the thought of playing and continually analysing the way I'm performing to detect a deterioration. I would hate to be one of t hese performers whom you would hear and think, 'Oh dear, I remember him a few years ago when he was at his peak'. ' The exception that proved this rule for Tuckwell came during his 13-year stint as principal horn of the LSO, when the orchestra was re cording with the violinist Josef Szigeti, then way past his prime. 'Szigeti had Parkinson's disease, and he trembled. But it was a recording, so whenever something went wrong, he'd say, 'Excuse me', and then he'd play it again. To hear the magic of th at man, who knew he had a problem which prevented him from playing in public, was really something. I didn't mind in that case, because it gave me the opportunity to work with this legendary musician.'

Tuckwell uses the words 'magic' and 'magical' often when discussing music, without sounding vague or gushing. On the contrary, he speaks with the precision of a respected surgeon. But it is striking, compared with so many burned-out young soloists, tha t even at the end of his long-playing career Tuckwell has not lost sight of the ineffable qualities of music which touched him as a young boy.

'I was always fascinated by sounds. I can remember just playing single notes on the piano, and listening to the overtones, and the sounds and the magic.' He took up the piano and violin 'but I didn't have the right digital dexterity for th ose instruments'.

The horn, curiously, did not at first leap out at him. 'It wasn't the sound of the instrument that attracted me,' he says. 'It was a chance conversation betweeen my sister, Sir Charles Mackerras and a horn-playing colleague in the Sydney S ymphony Orchestra. I was 13, and she said, 'What can we do about Barry? He's musical, and he must be able to play something.' And the horn player said, 'Well, why doesn't he try the horn?' 'It was a simple, wonderful and, for me, historic moment, because if they hadn't been sitting together at that particular moment in that particular coffee lounge in Sydney, I may have become a music critic or something dreadful like that.' The rest, as they say, is history. Tuckwell is now a resident of the United States, and lives with his wife, Sue, in Hagerstown, Maryland. He founded the Maryland Symphony Orchestra in 1982, and intends to focus on his career as a conductor once he has laid down the famous 16 feet of coiled metaltubing for the last time.

Self-critical to the last, Tuckwell describes his chief regret: 'My regret is constantly thinking about pieces that I should have played better. I'm thinking of a performance of Mozart's Third horn concerto I once gave in Liverpool. At the end of i t, for once in my life I thought: I've done something worthwhile. I felt both proud and humble, because I really thought I'd achieved something.

'And then I read the newspaper review the next day, and it said that I had played the piece in such an offhand manner that the critic wondered why I had bothered to make the journey to Liverpool. I was devastated. Perhaps he was right. Maybe I didn 't communicate. I have a regret about this even today, because I'm one of those people who take criticism seriously. You have constantly to be your own toughest critic. I certainly am.' From this persective, retiring from the front rank of horn soloi sts will, one imagines, be a blessed relief. After a long career that has been part-stalwart, part-starry, Mr Tuckwell - more than most - thoroughly deserves his rest.

Barry Tuckwell gives the British premiere of Knussen's horn concerto at the Proms on Aug 13 (0171-589 8212). His final UK performances will be at Newcastle City Hall, Nov 6-9 (details 0191-240 1812)

© The Daily Telegraph 10 Aug 96

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