Sonata per corno, Op. 4 by Maharani (live performance by me)

I am stoked to finally release this great collaboration with @Maharani that we've been working on for over a month! I first found out about Marissa's Solo French Horn sonata through the United Composer's Collective discord server (UCC). I offered to play and record at first just one movement but then it turned into a full 4-movement project. I spent a lot of time practicing almost everyday getting my chops into a state of preparedness. Honestly - it was a bit like training for a marathon! LoL

The movements are as follows:

1. Sonata

2. Aria

3. Capriccio

4. Ciaccona

We are also including two versions of the score - the handwritten one by Marissa and a more official and mistake free engraving by me.

Bandcamp link: https://maharajah.bandcamp.com/album/sonata-per-corno-op-4

Let us know what you think of the composition, engraving as well as performance of this work! We'd be stoked to hear any of your comments, critiques, suggestions or observations! Thanks for listening.

Sonata per corno – handwritten score.pdf Sonata per corno Complete.pdf

I am absolutely ecstatic with Peter's recording!! Peter, thank you so much again for your hard work and dedication. I could not be happier with the result, and I feel I've made a new friend as well. ❤️ Feel free to upload your versions with reverb as a bonus! :)

8 minutes ago, Maharani said:

I am absolutely ecstatic with Peter's recording!! Peter, thank you so much again for your hard work and dedication. I could not be happier with the result, and I feel I've made a new friend as well. ❤️ Feel free to upload your versions with reverb as a bonus! :)

Thank you! It was a pleasure working with you! I hope to take full advantage of the embouchure conditioning that my chops have been through to get to be able to play your sonata! Here are the files with reverb as a bonus! (and also my preferred version for my own listening pleasure)

Beautiful horn sonata, and this sounded exhausting to play lol. Also, the recording with the reverb is excellent. This would be really fun to layer with an orchestral backing.

Peter asked me to write a little review, and I'm very happy to. :)

For starters, I was ecstatic that Peter agreed to play even one of my movements for solo horn! At the time I was only able to offer a low payment, yet he thought the piece was interesting enough to learn, anyway. Then, after 18 years of not hearing any complete piece of mine performed, I got hungry for more, and when I got an extra paycheck, I gradually asked if Peter was interested in learning more movements I'd written for solo horn. He kept saying yes, and after he agreed to the fourth one, I decided to assemble them into a coherent four-movement sonata.

Throughout the process, Peter was patient with my many requests for changes to his engraved score and for re-recording parts of movements that I thought weren't quite perfect yet. He spent many weeks practising for hours almost every day until we both were happy with the completed result, and I couldn't be more pleased with the finished recording. I added a tip to our agreed payment for his dedication to our project. I can highly recommend him to anyone interested in asking him for engraved scores or horn recordings. At some point I hope to be able to hire him for recording another horn solo sonata! :)

17 hours ago, chopin said:

This would be really fun to layer with an orchestral backing.

Feel free to have a go at it if you feel like it. :)

As another bonus, this inhumanly fast rendering is what the capriccio sounds like in my head ~

@PeterthePapercomPoser @Maharani Wow congrats on the collaboration!

I like both versions, but the reverb version really adds a layer of lushness to the sound, it's great. :) Seems like a lot of effort went into the recording and practicing, so well done there Peter. The handwritten score is clear and I'm envious of your nice handwriting lol.

The language is interesting, what was the thought process behind it?

On 11/6/2026 at 12:25 PM, Maharani said:

Throughout the process, Peter was patient with my many requests for changes to his engraved score and for re-recording parts of movements that I thought weren't quite perfect yet. He spent many weeks practising for hours almost every day until we both were happy with the completed result, and I couldn't be more pleased with the finished recording. I added a tip to our agreed payment for his dedication to our project. I can highly recommend him to anyone interested in asking him for engraved scores or horn recordings. At some point I hope to be able to hire him for recording another horn solo sonata! :)

❤️

Well done you two, it's always great to hear live recordings here, and this was a fine example of what collaboration can achieve

26 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

The language is interesting, what was the thought process behind it?

I am a German living in America, so which to choose? Italian is the international language of music and already used for so many components of a score, so I figured I might as well use it consistently. :)

Thank you for your compliments! <3

Edited Sunday at 07:19 PM1 day by Maharani

What an interesting composition. Writing a solo piece for a single-line instrument is a kind of marker of compositional mastery. There’s nowhere to hide here: not behind harmony, not behind any effects in the texture or counterpoint. Pure melody and form. It turned out to be a captivating piece.
And the performance, of course. It’s a pleasure to hear music played on a live instrument by a live performer. It was played very convincingly and delicately. Simply bravo.
By the way, I didn’t know that Peter is a horn player. For some reason I thought you were a theorist. Your username pushed me to that conclusion. =)

These days are great in that I can see such nice collaborations like Henry & Vasilis, plus the Peter & Maharani pair! 😊

Peter, these pieces were good to hear. This kind of solo melody music is somehow difficult and you made nice pieces. I love your reverb version and, of course, Maharani's one. I think I like "Sonata" - this is a good opening for starting listening to these. Thank you for sharing.

By the way, I've never listened to horn solo pieces. I know solo trumpet, saxophone - jazz sometimes does that but are there any solo horn pieces like that? I don't know. As for solo music, I love Paganini Violin Sonatas, not horn, though. That's awesome, isn't it?

Anyway, nice job, both of you! I enjoyed it :)

On 11/9/2026 at 5:36 AM, Alexx said:

By the way, I didn’t know that Peter is a horn player. For some reason I thought you were a theorist.

Hello Alexx, you can see Peter's horn in this topic, haha. For your reference!

Best,

Lithl.