Alphorn Concertos

Leopold Mozart (1719-1787): Sinfonia Pastorella

Jean Daetwyler (1907-1994): Dialogue avec la nature

Ferenc Farkas (1905-2000): Concertino Rustico

Jean Daetwyler (1907-1994): Concerto for Alphorn and Orchestra

The Alphorn is phenomenal in its size and in its very limited musical range. The instrument is one of great antiquity, a shepherd’s trumpet, made of wood, and is found in the Alps, the Carpathians, Lithuania, the Pyrenees and in Scandinavia. Traditionally a signal instrument, with considerable carrying power, it has undergone various changes in construction, and is now most familiar in the form with an upturned bell at the end of a hollowed wooden pipe some eleven or twelve feet long. Since the early nineteenth century the alphorn has also been made in different keys, to allow a certain amount of ensemble playing between performers on the instrument. In recent years Swiss composers have brought the alphorn into the conc