L'Appel du Cor

L'Appel du Cor (works for horn and piano) - Beyond the stereotypes. The cliché about the French is well-known – a man with a beret on his head and a baguette under his arm. The stereotypical image of the horn is that of the hunting horn – the only image the general public has of an instrument they hear almost daily, but know so little about. So why does hornist Hervé Joulain call his new cd "L'Appel du Cor" (The call of the horn), why does he venture into the realm of clichés? First of all, the hunting horn is part of the history of the horn itself, and that cannot be denied in any way. Furthermore, composers transformed this past, this origin, into a new source of musical inspiration. Whether they are rustic, thundering or poetic, they have made the soft, the "Tayauté", even the "Débuché de la plaine" and the famous "Halali" into the material of their musical composition for the modern horn. Some of the pieces that Hervé Joulain performs could be wrongly described as "minor" works, specifically for end-of-year recitals at music schools. Here the hornist's playing shows us that this music is far from that and deserves to be played and heard. So the horn takes us on a journey with composers from Busser to Bozza, from Pugno to Planel, between dreams and lullabies, legends and whims, to the "feminine vision" that composer Elsa Barraine has for the horn in her brass band. Hornist Hervé Joulain and pianist Fanny Azzuro interpret these works – some of which can be heard as premiere recordings – in a wonderfully musical manner.