Virtuoso Horn Duo in Concert in Poland
Posted By kerryturner on October 8, 2008
This picture shows Kristina and me rehearsing my “Twas a Dark and Stormy Night” with the Lower Silesian Philharmonic in Jelenia Gora, Poland, under the direction of Dariusz Wisniewski.
Many of you may have never heard of Jelenia Gora. And if I told you that it is called Hirschberg or Deer Mountain in German and English, that probably wouldn`t help you much. The fact is, it is a small and quite delightful little city in western Poland, only about a 45-minute drive from the German border. And it was here that Kristina Mascher and I traveled to perform with the Lower Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra with Mr. Dariusz Wisniewski conducting. On the program for us to perform were the Haydn Concerto for 2 Horns in Eb as well as my own “Twas a Dark and Storm Night”, 2 works which we had recorded with Mr. Wisniewski in Cracow a couple of years ago (CD- Virtuoso Horn Duo, works by Haydn, Rosetti, Vivaldi and Turner, MSR Classics MS 1181).
Now you may wonder that we drove such a long distance to play this one concert, especially given our rather busy orchestral touring schedule this past September. Originally, we were supposed to perform and teach in Warsaw during the week just after the Jelenia Gora concert. But due to strange and incredible circumstances, that part of the tour was canceled, and contracts being what they are, we were still obligated to travel to Lower Silesia for this one concert. And I am glad we did! We stopped along the way in the city of Eisenach, the birthplace of Master Bach and famed haunt of Martin Luther, where we spent the night in a rustic, old inn where Martin Luther himself had spent much time! We even engaged in deep religious debate over several tankards of Lutherbräu beer. Good stuff!
On the way back from Jelenia Gora, we popped by Oederan outside of Chemnitz in Germany, where we met up with Mr. Ricco Kühn, the famous builder of the Kühn horn. Both Kristina and I had some work and fine tuning to be done on our horns, and Ricco was more than accommodating, dedicating his entire Saturday to our particular needs. It was rather like the Formel 1 Race, where the cars, in the middle of the action, are forced to pull over and have their motors and tires checked, oiled and tweaked and the odd bit changed. The reason for this technical pit stop? The next day, September 29th, we were off to Beijing for the 2nd Beijing Horn Festival. And for that, you will have to read the next blog…..
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