Secrets de cor

Multi-facetted instrument that can be heard both heroic and proud or tender and intimate. From far away one can recognise its warm tone and velvet timbre.

The French horn can be found everywhere, from the baroque period onwards. It is the only instrument from the brass family to be present in almost all classical symphonies.

Brass, definitely, but the woodwind section sometimes consider it to be one of their own. And what more can be said about the perfect symbiosis that occurs when it is played alongside string instruments or the voice?

Mozart wrote 4 (5?) horn concertos, imagine that... As many as for the violin!

Romantic composers brought it to the forefront of the stage, often giving the horn the lead role. The twentieth century was no different, and what's more, no film music is complete without it.

But what lies in the secret world of the French horn?

This album aims to reply to this question, bringing together a number of recordings made over the last 20 years. The recording material, the halls and the pianos are all different, but the instrument and the performer however, stay the same.

This  patchwork  format was our goal; like a multitude of secrets, of tales waiting to be told.

In listening to these secrets, one will find rarities, some pieces that have never been recorded to this day, but which I find to be the essence of this instrument: heroic, proud, tender and intimate.

Reviews on... -> Pizzicato - Revue Musicale de la Suisse Romande - The Horn Player (EN) - Grey Panthers (IT) - International Horn Society

Franz Strauss - Study on Beethoven 5
Christophe Sturzenegger - The Two Léa's Songs
Lord Tennyson - Blow, Bugle, Blow
Chris Garland - Memorial Sonata
Benjamin Britten - Prologue of Serenade op.31 (Alphorn)
Walter de la Mare - The Horn
Kurt Sturzenegger - Cornicen
Bernard Krol - Laudatio
Alfred de Vigny - Le Cor
Christophe Sturzenegger - Romance (Ed. Klarthe)
Kurt Sturzenegger - Ballade pour cor et piano
Hans Sturzenegger - Largo (Ed. Klarthe)
Johannes Brahms - Etude (Andantino)
John Williams - Arlington (JFK)
Christophe Sturzenegger - Légendes for Luka
Justinus Kerner - Alphorn
Kurt Sturzenegger - Trift (Alphorn)

Christophe Sturzenegger, french horn and Alphorn

Julie Fortier, piano