Douglas Lundeen - The Truly French Horn

Part of Midtown Concerts

The French aesthetic of horn playing hewed to the lyricism and delicacy of the natural horn even after the adoption of valves. This aesthetic was preserved in the design and dimensions of the horns in use. The "internationalization" of the 1970's ushered in changes in repertoire that made the softly-voiced French piston-valve horn obsolete. A natural horn specialist, Doug stumbled into the opportunity to purchase the Selmer horn that belonged to the great soloist Lucien Thevet for whom Tomasi wrote his concerto. Douglas Lundeen will be performing on that instrument today.

Douglas Lundeen originally trained as an opera singer with Frank Baselice of the Metropolitan Opera. Largely self-taught on the French horn, he won first prize for solo natural horn in the 1987 American Horn Competition. Since then, Dr. Lundeen has played principal horn with period instrument orchestras in New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Vancouver and Washington, D. C, under such conductors as Hogwood, Norrington, Brüggen, Parrott, and Koopman, and has been a featured recitalist and master clinician at many conferences of the International Horn Society and the International Early Brass Society. On the modern horn, he has soloed and played principal horn with orchestras in Costa Rica, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as well as on Broadway. Dr. Lundeen is currently Principal Horn of the Princeton Symphony and Assoc. Prof. of Music at Rutgers University. He has recordings on the Sony, Newport Classics, Musical Heritage Society, and Centaur labels.

Douglas Lundeen, Selmer Piston Horn

Barbara Gonzalez Palmer, Piano