14 January 07 - 14:26Exoticness and Delight
By Karl-Heinz Fischer, The newspaper Badische Neuesk Nachrichten
17. October 2006
"There can hardly be a more exotic and delightful concert than the evening with the Russian Horn Cappella. 14 musicians are standing on the choir platform at Bernharduskirche, each with one to five horns in hand. It is impossible to recognize at first glance familiar horns in these instruments since they are just slightly tapered conical tubes of copper and metal with mouthpieces. Such an instrument is unique in that it can play only a single tone. It seems almost incredible that an ensemble of such horns with lengths ranging from a dozen centimeters to two and a half meters could play any melodies at all, to say nothing about real orchestral pieces. Yet it really can, which the amazed audience could see for themselves. The musicians from St. Petersburg have in their repertoire a large variety of classic works, including compositions by such greatest masters in the history of music as Henry Purcell, Gioacchino Rossini, Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Johannes Brahms, Carl Maria von Weber, Camille Saint-Saёns and Richard Strauss. (+++)

