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Looking for music for five or more horns?

The Guide to Horn Ensemble Repertoire by Rebecca Boehm Shaffer can help you. A new easy-to-use reference for horn ensemble music, this book highlights 17 different performance criteria plus objective annotations on general style, extended techniques, and other performance issues.

For more information, sample entries, and to order, visit www.TheHornGuide.com.

Cerminaro has had an extraordinary career, serving as principal French horn in the New York Philharmonic in the glory days of Leonard Bernstein, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, when Carlo Maria Giulani was music director. He has taught at noted institutions and festivals and made superb recordings. His arrival at the Seattle Symphony began a revitalization of the French horn section, at one time among the worst in the orchestra.

Cerminaro is accustomed to solo appearances, and so the Strauss First Horn Concerto held no particular terrors for him. He also knows the piece profoundly, having first performed in 1971, when he was a member of the New York Philharmonic. Cerminaro made the most of what Strauss gave him.

His command of the instrument, notoriously difficult, is remarkable. Period. He seemingly can do anything, and that can be thrilling to a listener. He possesses an uncommonly wide dynamic range and phrases with immense sophistication. This tone is burnished and reminds one why Wagner chose the instrument as a musical symbol for his hero Siegfried in the "Ring" cycle.

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Performing both the Beethoven Septet in E-flat for winds and strings and the Mozart Horn Quintet, K. 407, VerMeulen finds the chance to demonstrate his formiddable technique:

The dedication of the horn quintet reads "Wolfgang Amade Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, ass, ox and fool, at Vienna, 27 March, 1783." The subject of Mozart's meanness, Leutgeb, played on a natural horn, while VerMeulen had the benefit of valves. VerMeulen also happens to sport a fabulous embouchure and sweet tone; he made everything sound easy. Just before the end of the finale, he improvised a flamboyant cadenza, all show-off coloratura.

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April 17, 2005, Überlingen, Germany.

The premiere could hardly have been more perfect. A granidose spectrum of music interpreted by an ensemble with world-wide reputation to a full house. What more could a concert organizer want? Music director Ralf Ochs and event manager Reinhard A. Weigelt could have only hoped for so much in their wildest dreams. More than 300 filled the Kapuziner church for the concert of the American Horn Quartet. The music loving audience was glowingly enthusiastic about the four prominent hornists who harmonized so impressively, and said goodbye to them with standing ovations. Not before they had applauded them into playing a special encore, though.

That the musicians let themselves be asked twice [to play the encore] could just possibly have been because they wanted to give their tired lips and lungs a short respite. After all, they'd already spent the entire day conducting a workshop at the music school working with aspiring hornists from Überlingen and all of Baden-Württemberg. In any case, when the sublime Air from Johann Sebastian Bach's orchestral Suite No. 3 filled the rooms of the Kapuziner church, it was the cherry on top of the cake for the diverse and challenging program. Had anyone previously had low expectations about the music of a horn quartet, they returned home richer for the overwhelming experience.

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