Horn Concerto

The full score to Colin Matthews’ Horn Concerto

Colin Matthews’ Horn Concerto was first performed by Richard Watkins and Philharmonia orchestra in 2001, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The 23-minute work is nocturnal in mood, with brooding, yearning melodies for solo horn taking precedence. There are traces of the late-Romantic music Matthews encountered in his work on Mahler, with offstage horns, soft-grained flugelhorns replacing trumpets, and strings muted almost throughout. The eerie tunings of natural harmonics in the solo part give the work's lyricism an uncanny feel.