Louis Francois Dauprat: Grand Sextuor

The world premiere recording of Louis Francois Dauprat's "Grand Sextuor" for horn sextet, a precious early-Romantic treasure with an unprecedented wealth of harmonic sophistication, great virtuosity and exquisite cantabile qualities. Performed with exuberant musicality by the Detmold Horn Players and captured in all its vibrancy and clarity by MDG's original recording technique, it retains its unrivalled position as a benchmark achievement.

Dauprat can be regarded as the most important horn player in Napoleonic France and a pioneer of the Parisian horn tradition. The richness of his compositional ideas often led beyond the normal limits of instrumental possibilities to the outer reaches of his own eminent virtuosity. This virtuosity, which even today is almost without equal, lifts his compositions from the sphere of trivial serenade music into the realm of serious chamber music.

"Grand Sextuor" is expressly dedicated "a son camerades", which would have invariably been for Dauprat's students with exclusively didactic intentions. He played and taught natural horn only, and this work was originally written for horns in different tunings. In Dauprat's time, a selection of unwieldy tuning crooks had to be used for this purpose.

The Detmold Horn Players were an ensemble within the internationally renowned horn class of Professor Michael Holtzel at the University of Music in Detmold, Germany. In the spirit of Dauprat, Holtzel moulded entire generations of horn players. Here he performs the work he rediscovered, together with his students, as Dauprat would have done 150 years previously.

"The Sextet is an outstanding, possibly unique work, and this ensemble... have superb intonation and expressiveness." - MusicWeb International

"This horn playing from Michael Holtzel and his Detmold Horn Players is immaculate. Virtuosity in every register, impeccable intonation, Holtzel himself floating like an acrobat high in the roof of the circus tent. " - Brass Bulletin