This Horn Hangout was recorded the day after the Tony Halstead video, again at Paxman’s horn shop in London. This video features the members of the London Symphony Orchestra horn section:
- Timothy Jones – Principal horn
- Angela Barnes – 2nd horn
- Alexander Edmundson – Co-principal/3rd
- Jonathan Lipton – 4th
- Hugh Seenan – Former principal horn, 1984-1997
The first almost 30 minutes are an interview with Timothy Jones alone, and then the he is joined by Hugh Seenan around the 28-minute mark. Some of the interesting things covered by Timothy Jones include:
- At 2:00 – the changes made in preparation after playing principal horn for many years.
- At 4:30 – how Timothy came to the horn from the euphonium, as well as his “formal training”. It, like Tony’s, is surprisingly sparse. Throughout the interview, the number of times he mentions “listening” or “picking things up” from listening to other players is a great lesson for all of us.
- At 7:00 the story for Timothy Jones’ first job is pretty neat. The following story about his second job (in the Munich Phil) is quite funny.
- At 13:20 Timothy answers a question about the “sound” of the London Symphony horn section and its uniformity.
- If you’re interested in the film scoring, they talk about how that works with the LSO and other players at about 15 minutes in for a while.
- At 19:00 Timothy talks about what a principal horn does (and, more importantly) doesn’t do.
- At 21:45 Timothy answers the question about his “favorite” horn. (Go Paxman!)
- At 23:30 Timothy talks about his daily routine and what he looks for in a routine. (spoiler alert: Farkas)
Hugh Seenan – Horn Anorak Par Excellence
- Hugh Seenan, former principal horn of the LSO, comes out at about 28 minutes in and talks about the history of the LSO and the Brain family.
- At 30:30 Hugh and Timothy talk about the LSO’s history playing on Raoux single-F horns (a la the Vienna Phil), leading into a discussion of the use of Alexander and Paxman instruments.
- Some history about Barry Tuckwell at 34:40 and his association with the LSO and how it has influenced the sound of the horn section. This morphs into a pretty fascinating history about the different horn “eras” of the LSO.
The Rest of the LSO Section
- At 43:30, Hugh leaves and is replaced by the remainder of the LSO horn section: Angela Barnes, Alexander Edmundson, and Jonathan Lipton.
- Not surprisingly Sarah starts with the 4th horn player (typical!) Jonathan Lipton and move up the section, each describing how they got into the LSO.
- At 50 minutes in, Alexander (the newest LSO section member) describes the audition process for the LSO.
- At 54:10 Angela goes over the different horns played by each member of the section. At 56 minutes in she discusses the allure and challenges of playing 2nd
- At an 1:02:00 Angela discusses some of the challenges of being the only girl in the section.
- At 1:07:00 they discuss an opening in the LSO section (Principal horn), and why that particular position is so hard to fill nowadays.
- At 1:09:20 they talk about inter-section communication and how to best communicate musical ideas when you’re working day-in-and-day-out together.
In a Horn Hangouts first (I believe) the end credits feature Angela’s recipe for the dessert (tiffin) she brought!
Watch Timothy Jones and the LSO Hangout
The next Horn Hangout – coming in June – is with Andrew Bain principal horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
