When I first joined the South Australian Symphony Orchestra (now the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra) as a horn player in 1971, I soon began writing short "demo" pieces known as "Cortettes" for the horn section to play at schools' concerts. The players were Stanley Fry, Rosalie Butcher, Barrie Sadler and myself, in that order. Later, as a struggling freelance in London during 1973-4, I recorded all of these myself on a Revox G36 reel-to-reel tape-recorder, using a "sound-on-sound" method (no click tracks or multi-tracks). I would record one part on channel 1, then transfer it to channel 2 while mixing a second part, then back to channel 1 with a third part etc.

It was possible to add a crude reverberation by a final transfer (which, seeing the recording studio was a tiny hostel room, became rather necessary).

Eight of these Cortettes are published by The Hornists' Nest.

I listen to these now with occasional embarrassment, but they seemed to amuse the S.A.S.O., if not the school audiences. Now that these recordings can be rescued from decaying tapes, I offer them as some sort of record of my horn-playing. The Borodin was recorded in the same manner (eight horns, one at a time!). For those acquainted with my piano transcription of the same piece, it may make an interesting comparison.

The Cortettes horn was a Holton double in nickel-silver, the Borodin horn a Yamaha double, both with mouthpiece Yamaha 31.

These MP3 files are © David Stanhope 2007; not to be copied or used without permission.

Cortette 1 (Beethoven 9)
Cortette 2 (Beethoven 3)
Cortette 3 (Bizet)
Cortette 4 (Beethoven Violin Concerto)
Cortette 5 (Brahms)
Cortette 6 (Tchaikovsky-Berlioz)
Cortette 7 (Wagner)
Cortette 8 (Prokofieff)
Cortette 9 (Beethoven 4)
Cortette 10 (Bach hornpipe)
Cortette 11 (Handel)
Cortette 12 (Strauss)
Cortette 13 (Chopin)
Cortette 14 (Chopin again)
Cortette 15 (Colonel Bergy)
Cortette 16 (Praetorius)
Cortette 17 (Grainger)
Cortette 18 (Kreisler)
Borodin Scherzo (Octet)