Description
In the twilight of his life, Richard Strauss composed a second concerto for horn and orchestra, again in E-flat major, around sixty years after his first horn concerto. This late masterwork, the sublimely beautiful Horn Concerto No. 2, gives no indication of the oppressive circumstances of Strauss' poor health and the ongoing Second World War. Premiered in 1943 by Gottfried von Freiberg under the baton of Karl Böhm, the concerto remained unpublished until after Strauss' death, when it finally appeared in print in London. This critical new edition, based on the autograph sources and performance materials, was long overdue. The editor, Hans Pizka, former principal horn of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, gained first-hand insights into the concerto's performance tradition and genesis as a pupil of Gottfried von Freiberg.
