Stefan Dohr makes his debut at the BBC Proms in the UK premiere of Han Abrahamsen’s Horn Concerto with John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic.
I wanted to learn more of the composer’s intentions and about how the work came into being, so I turned to a conversation found on Berlin Phil’s Digital Concert Hall platform, given after the very first rehearsal of Hans Abraham’s Horn Concerto in January 2020. Dohr, principal horn of the Berlin Phil, chatted with Danish composer, Hans Abrahamsen and Estonian American conductor, Paavo Järvi. All seated upstairs in the Philharmonie with those famous peach iridescent bubbles sparkling in the background.
A conversation
Abrahamsen had nurtured dreams of composing a horn concerto since turning down a commission from the Danish Radio Symphony at the age of 20 because he did not feel ready. Having learnt both the piano and horn as a child and subsequently studying at the conservatoire in Copenhagen, he was faced with a dilemma.
How to cope with “a right hand which cannot play any instrument”?
As playing the piano became increasingly challenging, concentrating on the horn seemed a natural solution. The static, holding position of a horn suited his right hand perfectly.
Along with his earlier concerto for left hand called Left, Alone (2016) – a fabulous title and a quite literal play on words – these two concertos became an autobiographical narrative of his life with their focus on the left hand and his own horn playing.
Dohr commissioned the concerto after performing Abrahamsen’s Let me tell you with Barbara Hannigan, an orchestral song cycle based on the 481 words spoken by Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
For Abrahamsen, who had grown up listening to the rich horn sound of the Berlin Phil with Herbert von Karajan playing all the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms, and had included the horn in almost all of his chamber works to date, composing a horn concerto was a “dream commission”.
A dream commission
Meeting later in Copenhagen in 2018, Dohr and Abrahamsen spent time exploring the technical possibilities and limitations of the modern horn whilst still trying to reflect its essentially Romantic character.
They decided to use evocative rhythmic motifs and natural overtones to retain the hunting aspect of the instrument. Overtones, sympathetic vibrations sounding a 7th and an 11th above, would meld into the texture. When played in isolation, these notes can sound out of tune to a modern ear however, crafted by Abrahamsen and Dohr, they appear natural – always moving forward, and more importantly, always resolved. Fragments intertwine seamlessly with fast passagework and extremes of the horn’s register.
Learning a difficult work
There is no question, this work is extremely challenging for both performer and listener. So how then should soloist and conductor approach a work created around logical progressions based on mathematical formulas, and one where the music fluctuates effortlessly between irregular time signatures laden with challenging cross rhythms such as 7:4 and 5:3?
Järvi talks of the rhythmic challenges in managing so many apparently abstract changes of tempo and adopts a practical approach as he recounts sitting on a beach with his daughters and tapping the rhythms out on his legs! In contrast, Dohr talks of the challenges faced when playing with an orchestra for the first time, describing how the orchestral sounds “broke-up” and came at him from “different angles”.
Performance at the BBC Proms 2024
And so to the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall; a very different acoustic. Still with Stefan Dohr as soloist, but now with Finnish conductor, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic.
Would the UK premiere adopt Abrahamsen’s original intention to have three double basses “standing tall like trees” in front of the conductor and surrounding the horn soloist as a “visual connection to the forest”. Would the horn be playing on “a wall of double bass harmonics”? The answer – no!
However, Dohr did almost immediately evoke those hunting calls, creating an off-stage effect with his distinctive and most attractive horn sound. Shimmering violins vied with magical and balletic woodwind, and percussive effects like a ticking clock indicated the passing of time. The teller of stories that “no one can understand… not even Abrahamsen himself” came to the fore, allowing “the listener to act as a co-composer; everyone is free to hear what they want”.
Despite an earlier reference to the horn sound of Brahms and Beethoven, this concerto is not melodic in the traditional sense, but instead focusses on contrasting colours. Musical fragments repeat in various forms to create a sense of unity and progression before passing on in an evolving sound canvas. Extremes of horn register vie with fleeting glimpses of tonality and resolution.
The acoustics of the Albert Hall allowed us to follow all those “sounds from different angles”: the violin’s open E strings, shimmering cymbals, and sustained double basses, sometimes high, sometimes low.
The future
The performance received a warm response, but as Järvi predicted, I left the hall in pensive wonder. This is not a piece which ends triumphantly, but one which touches us and requires a measured and considered response. Abrahamsen talks of creating something “pastoral, meditative, even reflective”; a work which “descends into stillness” and one which grows and evolves with familiarity and various interpretations. In this, he was most successful.
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