Volume 10 - Daniel Bourgue
Logo by Martha Blanks
This month we are celebrating the luminary French performer and teacher Daniel Bourgue! Regarded as one of the finest soloists of his generation, Bourgue was an exemplar of the French aesthetics of tone and style and was a prolific recording artist. Our featured album, Two Centuries of French Music for Horn, was released in 1974 and includes many repertoire favorites performed with the Orchestre National De L’Opéra De Monte-Carlo.
Daniel Bourgue (1937-2023), born in Avignon, France, was a pupil of Jean Devemy at the Paris Conservatory and earned the Primier Prix in 1959. His biography, provided by the International Horn Society, lists an extensive orchestral career including the Orchestre National de France, the Concerts Pasdeloup, the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Mexico, the orchestras of Munich, Sofia, and Cologne, and the Salzburg String Quartet. He maintained a long tenure as principal horn of the Orchestre du Théâtre National de l’Opéra de Paris from 1964 to 1989, and was a founding member of the Ensemble intercontemporain in 1976.
He premiered many works for horn, most notably the original solo work from 1971 by Olivier Messiaen that became the Interstellar Call in Des canyons aux étoiles, and the Divertimento by Jean Françaix. Additionally, Bourgue published five volumes of his method Techni-Cor, a transcription of the six Cello Suites by Bach, and served as the director of Editions Billaudot. He was the president of the Association Nationale des Cornistes Français, hosted the 14th International Horn Symposium in Avignon, France in 1982, and was inducted as an IHS Honorary Member in 2008.
Daniel Bourgue demonstrates a thorough mastery of these works, lending an understated artistry that elevates the pairing of the horn with these original orchestrations. Bourgue allows the timbre of the various orchestral instruments to guide his own tonal palette, as we can hear in the following examples -
Dukas’ Villanelle reigns among our most enduring recital pieces, There are many orchestral colors that we miss with piano accompaniment - the atmospheric tremolo of the violins, the churning thrum of the violas and violins in the interstitial melody, and the woodwinds that dovetail and punctuate the horn’s melody:
Saint-Saëns’ Morceau de Concert is a similarly durable masterpiece, yet hearing the colors and textures of the orchestral scoring breaths life into this standard. Bourgue’s sturdy tempo and nimble execution is made buoyant through the variety of colors provided by the strings and winds:
Near the conclusion of Charbrier’s Larghetto, Bourgue’s clear and precise sound floats easily above the warm and supportive string accompaniment:
Lastly, Vincent D’Indy’s Andante Cantabile is a seldom-recorded and magical gem! Bourgue tastefully leans into the phrases, evoking a musical atmosphere of nostalgia:
This album certainly serves as a refreshing review of many standard pieces, impeccably performed by Daniel Bourgue. We hope you’ve enjoyed listening to excerpts from Two Centuries of French Music for Horn, and for reading Horn on Record!