Writing for the horn carries so many implied associations. No other orchestral instrument, save perhaps the trumpet, brings as much specific baggage with it. What the horn can do, it does consummately, and it always conjures up very precise musical worlds. Composers embarking on a horn concerto ignore that indelible character at their peril.
In his new work Colin Matthews has been happy to go along with those intrinsic elements. His Horn Concerto was given its first performance by the soloist Richard Watkins, with the Philharmonia (which commissioned it) under Esa-Pekka Salonen. It is a 20-minute single movement that inhabits an enchanted nocturnal world of mysterious rustlings, dappled shading and subterranean movements, shot through with the haunting calls and singing, expressive melodic lines that define the instrument's essence.
The orchestration reflects that twilight world: the strings are often muted and frequently subdivided; flugel horns rather than trumpets line up in the brass. The horn section is positioned offstage; their bracing, hunting mottos open the concerto from the wings, answered by their soloist colleague. As he migrates across the platform during the course of the work they punctuate the dialogue with varied versions of their original calls.
The work follows a clear arch, with a darting, fugitive scherzo at its centre, which eventually dissolves into the most luminous music in the whole score, as the solo horn's high-lying lines are clothed in the glitter of tuned percussion and usher in the long, lingering coda. It is a totally lucid and satisfying scheme.
Matthews was moved to write a horn concerto by Watkins's artistry, and the wonderful legato and supple phrasing that his soloist produced must have delighted him. Salonen made sure the beguiling orchestral textures were evoked with total precision.
The work was framed with Bartok's Divertimento for Strings and Sibelius's Fifth Symphony, but there was also some unannounced Sibelius to begin the concert, for the saddest of reasons. Giuseppe Sinopoli, the Philharmonia's musical director from 1983 to 1994, died suddenly in Berlin on Friday at the age of 54. Salonen conducted the Death of Melisande from the Pelleas and Melisande Suite in touching, eloquent tribute.
