Volume 13 - Christopher Leuba
Logo by Martha Blanks
Horn on Record is all about preserving the intersection of influencial hornists and long-lost repertoire. It’s thrilling then to present Christopher Leuba’s 1974 recording of Bernhard Heiden’s Quintet for Horn and String Quartet performed with the Philadelphia String Quartet.
Christopher Leuba (1929-2019) was born in Pittsburgh and studied at Carnegie Mellon University. He joined the Pittsburgh Symphony as 4th Horn at age seventeen, and soon after served in the US Army Band with stations at West Point and the English Midlands. While in England, Lebua studied with Aubrey Brain, and upon returning to the United States moved to Chicago and studied with Philip Farkas. Lueba was appointed principal horn of the Minneapolis Symphony from 1954-1960, and again from 1963-1967. During the 1960-1962 seasons, he succeeded his mentor Farkas as principal horn of the Chicago Symphony.
Leuba taught at the University of Washington from 1968 -1979 and spent many summers on the faculties of the Aspen and Chitaqua Music Festivals. His performance career continued with positions in the Seattle and Portland Operas, and the Philharmonica Hungarica conducted by Antal Dorati. His pedagogical legacy is reflected in his many publications, including Rules of the Game, A Study of Musical Intonation, Phrasing Concepts, and Dexterity Drills. A compendium of many of these materials is available through Faust Music, and you can also listen to extensive interviews with Christopher Leuba, recorded in 2011 by Howard Sanner, about his professional career and musical experiences.
Chrisopher Leuba’s 1974 recording of Berhard Heiden’s Quintet is the first commercial recording, predating another interpretation from hornist Mason Jones and the Philarte Quartet produced in 1980. While many hornists are familiar with Berhard Heiden’s Horn Sonata (1939), his Quintet for Horn and Strings is much neglected in current performance. Heiden, a pupil of Paul Hindemith at the Hochshule für Musik In Berlin, spent nearly thirty years on the composition faculty of Indiana Univeristy. Much like Hindemith, Bernhard Heiden’s music is highly structed and polyphonic, with rigorous manipulation of thematic and motivic material.
Composed in 1952, Heiden’s Quintet for Horn and Strings is dedicated to John Barrows and has four movements with a duration under twenty minutes.
The 1st movement has a lilting compound-meter melody, propelled at times by churning sixteenth-note ostinato patterns. In this example, notice how Leuba energetically articulates the ostinato rhythm before weaving the melodic motive through the string texture:
The vivace 2nd movement pairs muted strings with stopped horn, creating a whispy dervish of sound. When the instruments un-mute, a marching bassline in the cello is cleverly spruced up with synocapted interjections that displace the overall sense of cadential arrival:
The following gorgeous Andantino allows the impassioned musicality of the performers to draw upon their rich pallete of colors. Leuba’s very subtle use of vibrato accentuates the dolce connection of the horn’s melodic phrase:
The Quintet closes with folk tune inspired melody reminiscent of Bartok. Lueba’s quite firm and powerful sound is present here, efficiently channeled into the precise and nimble double-tongued articulations:
Hopefully this marvelous recording and the featured contributions of Christopher Leuba will prompt more performances of Heiden’s Quintet for Horn and String Quartet to be programmed on more chamber music concerts!