When I posted about Hugh Seenan and the London Horn Sound the other day I went searching for him on the www and found a picture of the LSO horn section ‘modelling’ Paxman horns. Next to him in the picture was another horn player that I played alongside frequently – mainly in the Glasgow University Orchestra and the Scottish Universities Orchestra.
So I went to track him down as well – Bill Haskins is now in the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and a church organist in Cardiff and I was able to contact him by email.
Now – we have not been in contact (I don’t think) since I left Scotland over 40 yrs ago. You just know that when virtually the first thing he said after being glad to hear from me was “I still get the giggles every time I play Beethoven 4” that there was some sort of long lasting story behind it!
So this week I am sharing some of the funny things (perhaps unusual would be a better word) that have happened to me. I willingly concede that most of these are of the “you had to be there” type of story – but use your imagination and they might be slightly amusing – and at least there is some good music linked.
We played Beethoven 4 at the Glasgow University Orchestra (and fortunately the link below includes the score). You will notice from the score that the horn part immediately switches to Bass Clef for the opening pianissimo wind chord. Both horn players – and especially the 2nd horn – are deep in the bowels of the range.
In rehearsal Bill and I found this unnaturally funny – probably because when the chord returns a few bars later it is fortepiano diminishing back to pp and one or both of us would have trouble avoiding a splash. All low brass players are aware that when you are playing very deep in the register things start to vibrate – including your eyeballs 👀 – and this – together with the fact that it is near impossible to play whilst giggling meant that – far from getting better – the whole situation got worse the more we rehearsed through the weeks leading up to our concert.
In the concert – I am sure that no one in the audience (or the rest of the orchestra) could have faulted our playing – what they didn’t know was that in order to manage that we quite literally turned our backs on each other by twisting our chairs round and played most of the opening with our eyes shut – concentrating hard on maintaining the low notes 😂
..and yes – that was Bill’s most enduring memory of our time together!! The link includes the whole symphony even though only the first few bars are required to illustrate the story – it is a nice symphony
Ludwig van Beethoven : Symphony No.4
Comments :
Brian Deans
Missed your comment about Hugh Seenan so went back for a look.
Kenny MacLean!!!
… blast from the past. I was at Junior Academy with both him and Hugh. Think Kenny went on to do medicine?