Beethoven, Schumann, and Ligeti

Overview

The range of the French horn was once limited to certain notes and scales before the addition of valves. Beethoven’s Horn Sonata, written for one of the best horn players of the day, defies this reality with virtuosic arpeggios and scales whizzing up and down the instrument. Meanwhile, Schuman wrote his Piano Quartet in E-flat Major for piano, violin, viola, and cello with his wife Clara in mind for the piano part, while the last of Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet was censored by the Soviets for being too “dangerous.”