Ben Goldscheider is on a mission to change the way the French horn is perceived.
The little-known brass instrument is Goldscheider’s passion and he aims to see it on centre stage just like a piano or violin.
"It’s been my mission to promote it in a kind of solo music light."
However, the French horn is not Goldscheider’s first instrument. Growing up in the home of professional musicians, he was first introduced to the cello at the age of 6.
"It was inevitable I was going to play something."
About the same time, he was diagnosed with a lung condition called bronchiectasis, which can make sufferers more vulnerable to infection and cause shortness of breath.
"It basically meant my lung function was only 50%. It was kind of serious at the time. I was in and out of hospital every couple of weeks and on antibiotics."
His doctor, knowing of his interest in music, suggested taking up a wind instrument to help strengthen his lungs.
"My parents, being in the know, thought let’s try the horn, it makes a nice sound and has good job opportunities."
Goldscheider, who grew up in London, gave the horn a go and soon fell in love with it. At the beginning it was very much just an extra-curricula activity.
"Music was just the natural thing in our household. With my parents being professional musicians, I grew up in the audiences of opera houses."
He was about 13 when he decided he wanted to be a professional musician.
"I don’t remember a specific eureka moment but I could see this correlation between working hard at something, enjoying it more and getting more opportunities as a result of that and being within this very positive cycle of reinforcement. It was fun and interesting."
Goldscheider stuck with the horn as he loves the sound of it.
"At the time I was playing in orchestras and ensembles and by and large the horn has really interesting parts, especially in some of the larger orchestral pieces — that is what really inspired me."
As well as being a majestic and noble-sounding instrument, it is versatile.
"It’s the only in instrument which plays chamber music with strings, with wind and with brass. We’re part of a brass quintet, we’re part of a string quartet and a horn quintet which I’m bringing to New Zealand. There is no other instrument that has that crossover."
There is also the ability to learn new techniques and the horn has the broadest range of any wind or brass instrument.
While Goldscheider believes people have a lot of affinity for the horn in the orchestra, in a setting where people would normally hear a violin recital or a string quartet it is seldom ever heard. He is working to change that perception.
"This has been my life’s work up to now. It’s why I’m really looking forward to coming to New Zealand."
As part of the mission, he made the decision not to perform in orchestras and instead seek opportunities where he could promote the horn as a more prominent instrument.
"I made a conscious decision to be different, to come up with projects that are very different than you might hear expect to hear from an orchestral horn player."
His work is evenly split between concerto performances, recitals and chamber performances.
He has performed more than 100 concerts in the past year and commissioned about 35 pieces of music where he asks the composer to show as much as possible what the horn can do.
"I’m the only horn player to have a commercial manager that I know of. I’m trying my best. I have two solo recitals at Wigmore Hall this year."
Goldscheider has performed at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Musikverein (Vienna), Pierre Boulez Saal (Berlin), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) and Kolner Philharmonie (Cologne) and Wigmore Hall (London).
Some of his standout concerts have been making his concerto debut in 2002 at the BBC Proms as well as a recital debut at the Musikverein — "it was a real pinch-me moment" — and playing Schumann’s Andante and Variations with Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich at a festival.
"There was a moment there sitting on stage I was thinking I can’t believe I’m here."
Much of his work has been inspired by those he studied with while living in Germany for four years, such as Czech conductor and French horn player Radek Baborak.
"He was my horn hero from the age of 10 so to get the opportunity to study with him was special."
He completed his studies with honours at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin with Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.
"He was very inspiring and we played a lot of chamber music together."
Goldscheider plays a French horn he bought new in 2015. Its strength, he says, is that it has a generally mellow, dark sound.
He is excited about coming to New Zealand for the first time for the At the World’s Edge Festival and performing two world premieres, works written for horn, violin and cello by AWE composer-in-residence Victoria Kelly and AWE emerging composer Georgina Palmer Maramataka, and the New Zealand premiere of a work co-commissioned by himself and the AWE by United Kingdom composer Nicola Lefanu After Farrera.
"There is a really nice cultural exchange there of having a New Zealand premiere of a new British work as well as two new pieces by New Zealand composers."
He will also be playing two works he has not played before — Shining Gate of Morpheus by Eleanor Alberga and Twilight Music by John Harbison.
"The horn repertoire is not huge so to have new pieces to learn is quite something so I’m really looking forward to it.
"Probably the most standard thing we are doing is the Ligeti horn trio, and Lagged is not normally a composer you would consider as standard but with everything else being experimental it’s amazing to consider Lagged as core repertoire."
The work is considered one of the masterpieces of the second half of the 20th century, he says.
"It’s a turning point in his life and a synthesis of these kind of middle and early periods. It’s a really, really mammoth undertaking for the musicians and the audience."
Goldscheider prefers to play new music and loves exploring music written in his lifetime.
"I find the music is much more abstract than maybe Mozart or Schubert is. I love the challenge of trying to find meaning in more abstract ways. But there is nothing like sitting down and playing some Mozart.
"I couldn’t have one and not the other but my preference is to go with the new."
It all adds up to a very busy life in which no two days are the same. There are a few constants each day, enabling him to maintain the level he likes, such as practising three to four hours a day when he does not have a concert, a little less when he does, to reserve energy for the performance, and running in the morning as it helps mentally and physically.
"Other than that the day is filled up with extra studies and I try to be a cultural sponge in my free time. There is a lot of admin, thinking up new projects, talking with my manager. By the time you do all that the days go."
While Covid provided some stressful times, especially given his lung condition, he was able to avoid it for 18 months and did not suffer unduly with it.
"I was fine but in the beginning of Covid it was terrifying for me; it was that unknown."
When he can get some spare time he spends it with his longtime girlfriend who is also a professional musician, or occasionally he squeezes in a game of tennis.
"I love playing tennis and I hope to bring a racquet to New Zealand and find someone to play with."
He also hopes to check out some of the recommendations his mother’s neighbour, who lives part-time in Queenstown, has given him on places to eat and visit in the area.
"It’s a small world."
TO SEE:
Ben Goldscheider, Sono, October 7, Te Atamira, Queenstown; Hommage October 8, Coronation Hall, Bannockburn; Muzikalni, October 12, Cloudy Bay Shed, Cromwell; Immemorial, October 13, Te Atamira; Manifesto October 15, Rippon Wanaka; At the World’s Edge Musical Festival 2023, October 7-20 Queenstown-Lakes.
