They’ve done it with trombones, cellos, violins, and violas, and now it’s the horns’ turn. Cala’s acclaimed “London Sound Series” was a neat idea hatched several years ago by conductor and Cala artistic director Geoffrey Simon. Why not gather together all the best players on a given instrument, drawn from London’s richly endowed orchestra community, write some arrangements both of characteristic classical repertoire and more unusual pieces, all of which would be designed to challenge the players and offer listeners something truly unique? You can imagine that this formula works better for some instruments than others: large groups of trombones or cellos prove more adaptable and versatile than violins, for example, whose massed sound we’re more used to and whose higher register limits scoring possibilities that will keep our ears happy over a long program. Horns, which on this recording also include a few Wagner tubas, definitely make the grade, assisted by arrangements that show off not only the varied sonic and technical capacities of the instruments, but also the dazzling virtuoso abilities of these 32 fearless musicians. After an obligatory commercial nod to the film Titanic (a medley featuring London studio player Hugh Seenan), the real fun begins, with Rossini’s La Danza, Abreu’s Tico-Tico, the “Rondo” from Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat, and a phenomenal rendition of Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture. There’s much more, some beautiful (jazz standard “Here’s that rainy day”, Humperdinck’s “Evening Prayer” from Hansel and Gretel), some dense and luscious (Wagner’s Tristan Prelude), some fiendish and fancy (Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba and Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla), and some not so great (Freddie Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”). The closing, Duke Ellington’s Caravan, is a stunner. So is the sound.
