Repeated Work for 8 French Horns

Me and my composition studio was recently asked to write a piece for 8 french horns by the french horn professor at my school. After weeks of trying to work a piece for that many horns, I think I have finally written a piece for 8 horns. This piece is still in its editing phase and feed back will be much appreciated.

Repeated Work for 8 French Horns

I quite like the minimalist ideas here. I kept interested and think a live performance would be really cool, but difficult to play really well. A few things: get rid of all of the dotted half rests in 4/4. This is not how it should be notated. It should be quarter rest, half rest. The first horn at 54 goes up to F#. While this is ok and possible, it will be louder and less restrained than you may be hoping for. Listen to my recording of Aphotic Zone for wind quintet in the chamber forum to see what I mean. There is a high g in the piece played by a good university player. The note sounds very cleanly, but in a repeated passage it may not have been as clear, it is pushed for. I enjoy the trance-like feeling that is developed in the piece.

Great ideas in this piece! I'm very much reminded of Steve Reich... ala electric counterpoint maybe? Anyways, I agree with benxiwf... I'm a hornist and I can say that some of those high notes really shoot out of the texture just because of the physical needs to play higher notes. But that might be okay... you'll just have to experiment. Also, the beginning feels a lot more in cut time than in a fast four. You might consider switching it up. Nice work! I enjoyed it!

Oh this is nice. Some of the few minimalist pieces I've played become really boring for the performers, but your piece keeps the performers on their toes. Can you find 8 horns to pull this off live?

Oh this is nice. Some of the few minimalist pieces I've played become really boring for the performers, but your piece keeps the performers on their toes. Can you find 8 horns to pull this off live?

Yes actually I do. Me and my fellow composers were asked specifically to write for 8 french horns by the horn professor here at my school. So after a bit of editing I hope to have a live recording of this piece in the coming months.

Great ideas in this piece! I'm very much reminded of Steve Reich... ala electric counterpoint maybe? Anyways, I agree with benxiwf... I'm a hornist and I can say that some of those high notes really shoot out of the texture just because of the physical needs to play higher notes. But that might be okay... you'll just have to experiment. Also, the beginning feels a lot more in cut time than in a fast four. You might consider switching it up. Nice work! I enjoyed it!

Thank you and Benxiwf for listening and commenting to this piece, your input is invaluable to me right now.

I do understand the difficulty of this piece physically on the players, mainly because I too am a horn player and have played through each of the lines myself. The problem I am having now is that I have seemed to written myself in a corner in that I currently do not know how to rectify this situation. Any suggestions?

ha..yes that can be difficult and only you can decide for sure..however, minimalist works can drag on and bore the listener, perhaps you can combine your ideas now for an ending that has some serious texture crossing with the different themes and rhythms playing cross hemiolas. buttt thats just the route that id likely go.

So how many composers wrote this? Was it difficult to abandon the stylistic difference amongst the group of you? I really like this - despite it being minimalistic.

Wonderful! I loved it. I think when played by 8 horns it will have a certain VERVE and drive to it that I would just eat up. I can imagine this would be fun to play too. haha. I wanna hear the recording.

So how many composers wrote this? Was it difficult to abandon the stylistic difference amongst the group of you? I really like this - despite it being minimalistic.

Just me, the horn prof asked all of the composers here to write a piece for his horn choir if they choose. This is just my piece I am giving him to choose, and it looks like me and one other composer here are submitting a piece to him.

haha, this was fun.

I am niot sure about the 3/4 3/4 2/4 section, that is like 8/4, why not keep it 4/4 and define the 3+3+2 pulse with slurs? I think hrn 3 and 7 should have slurs?

same applies for the 12/8 + 2/4 section.

Nice work. I thought you only wrote vocal music.

I think you just made me like minimalism. And 8 horns? This piece has cool written all over it. Well-done; would love to hear this live. Interesting and fresh!

O God, when the midi gets to about :30 or so, the horns sound SO awful! DX I'm sure the midi is to blame though, sorry about that!

I really like the ideas here, and the minimalism of the piece is handled really well: there's repetition, but just enough of it without running anything to the ground (for the most part), and the horn varies at good parts through-out the piece.

I'm not crazy about the flatness of the piece at where the horns start to play the staccatos for what feels like a full minute. (I'm talking about mainly from 2:00ish to 2:50ish) It seems to serve to lengthen the piece without actually adding quality: sometimes being shorter is better! ;)

But I do agree that this is a nice use of subtle changes to keep both performers on their toes, and interesting the listener as well.

Thanks for sharing! :D