“His reconstruction of the Fifth Concerto is spectacular” – Prof. Eldon Matlick
“I think you hit it bang-on; convincing both in terms of Mozart’s language and of the writing for the natural horn. I’ll bet [they’ll] fall in love with it!” – Prof. Richard Seraphinoff
“It is a tribute to his work that one cannot tell where Mozart leaves off and he begins” – Christopher Leuba, reviewing the original versions in The Horn Call, 1981
A thirtieth anniversary celebration: Announcing a pragmatic new edition of the E major Allegro, K.494a, transposed to E flat major
Thirty years ago, James Nicholas drew the double bar on his completion of the E-major concerto fragment. This ninety-one bar incipit of a first movement Allegro, although dating from Mozart’s mature period (1785-1786, around the time of Le Nozze di Figaro and the great piano concerti K.482, K.488, and K.491), would actually have been only the second horn concerto had he completed it.
To celebrate this thirtieth anniversary, he has created an edition in E flat major for practical reasons, making the concerto far easier in terms of fingering, much less tiring, and in general more accessible to those who would be playing it on the valve horn. Although it loses some of the bright character of E major, it acquires a warmth and majestic sumptuousness of its own. (The Hummel trumpet concerto, also originally in E major, is usually played in E flat major today for similar reasons).
Complete Set includes Full Score (26 pages), Piano Score (with Solo F Horn part), and Orchestra Parts (2 ob, 2 hn in F; Strings: 2.2.1.2)