Anton Reicha’s 24 Trios for three horns constitute one of the most curious productions from a composer who specialized in musical curiosities. What’s even more astounding is that the four volumes that comprise the work, each containing six pieces, actually include some marvelous music. Along with various canonic contrapuntal displays, there’s a delightful set of variations on the aria “Charmante Gabrielle”, a killer fugue, something ominously titled “Tritonus”, which actually turns out to be a rather jolly, peppy march, and a whole slew of minuets. Obviously, the music deserves to be better known, and just as obviously the chances of that are virtually nil–there aren’t many horn trios running around the globe at the moment, and the present work just about exhausts the repertory for this particular combination. The Deutsche Naturhorn Solisten (it sounds much better in the original language than “German Natural Horn Soloists”) cope with the barely possible demands of these atrociously difficult yet relentlessly charming works about as well as we have any reason to expect. Listeners familiar with natural horn ensembles (and I know there are just millions of you folks out there in cyberspace, right?) will not take amiss the occasional odd-sounding chord, the result of the instrument’s natural overtones not quite corresponding to the equal-tempered scale. It only adds spice to a genuinely novel musical experience. Fascinating.
