Horn Concerto – Opus 11 (1971)

Programme note from the first performance:
From 1969 to 1970 Paul Patterson was composer in association with the English Sinfonia, and as a result Nottingham has heard most of his recent output. He has a particular love of wind and brass instruments, and it is not surprising that this year’s Festival Commission should be a horn concerto. It is score for horn and stirng orchestra in a tonal vein, somewhat removed from the familiar serial style which is associated with Patterson’s music. As with his trumpet concerto which was performed at last year’s Festival, the work opens with a quasi cadenza passage for the solo instruments stating the main thematic material for the sonata form 1st movement. A forceful ostinato heralds the boisterous 1st Subject on the violins and then on the solo instrument. The contrasting 2nd Subject is a broad and relaxed melody that is closely related in harmonic content to the opening of the movement. This relationship is evident in the recapitulation when both themes are heard simultaneously. The tranquil slow movement re-employs both these themes; the first is a distant hunting call flanking the extended legato melody of the second subject accompanied by lush, almost romantic, string writing. A tense fugue in the central section reaches a somewhat restrained climax, which dissolves into the mystic hunting calls from the opening of the movement.

This calm is shattered by the romping finale where we see Patterson in his element. This exciting rondo which calls for technical fireworks from both soloist and orchestra is driven by heavy pulsating cross-rhythmic figures, that accentuate the blaring, brassy, almost banal theme that seems to be so suited to the horn. This momentum is relentlessly maintained throughout the movement only to be interrupted once by a cadenza that both delves into the realms of virtuosic impossibility and pauses for a retrospective glance at the serenity of the slow movement. However the Rondo returns once more, and with flourishes of trills and glissandi the work reaches its close with typical Patterson panache.

Notes by Charles Hine.