‘You’re doing what?’ said my friend incredulously as if I were off for a week of Georgian Nose Whistling. It was horn-playing, Vienna-horn playing, Vienna horn playing in the wilds of Scotland. Along as the photographer, my eardrums were girded, my inner vegetarian locked up.

I have tried it, horn playing I mean. My lips quivered and spasmed, my cheeks liquefied, my eyeballs turned puce– it’s like trying to bench press an elephant with your teeth. ‘You have to RELAX’ said my would be teacher in exasperation, sitting dabbing nappy rash cream on his chin – it’s all right for him, he’s got lungs like Dolly Parton. That comment that Brendan Behan made about the critic being the eunuch in the harem: I know how its done, I’ve seen it done and yet I am unable to do it.

It was a stormy Easter and the second Volksunion of The Vienna Horns of Scotland (the indomitable Scottish horn club) and the Wienerwaldhornverein (the insouciant Austrian horn club). There were 3 representative members who traveled up from ‘the South’: Shirley Hopkins, Paul Sawbridge and Alan Smart.
The Wienerwaldhornverein, or ‘too many vowels wastes good drinking time’ are a crack team of hornplayers: 13 of them, freelancers, teachers, students, professionals and gifted amateurs, 2 of whom are women, led by their new conductor, the sanguine 26 year old Azis Sadikovic.



The WWV are the oldest (and probably the best) horn club in the world (1883). Unfortunately this seemed sometimes irrelevant as no one in Scotland could pronounce their name: ‘The Winey whos?’ queried the umpteenth unfortunate concert presenter (normally a church minister) nervously… However, together with the VHOS they are large of lung and leviathan of larynx. They have oesophagi you could donate to medical science. Roland Fritsch, their fearsome first horn, his massive torso clad in the St Andrews flag, burping hot metal and pouring cataracts of spit onto the carpet sporadically, can pull a top G, as golden as an aged Laphroaig, out of the bag standing on his head, walk away and leave it hanging in the air five minutes later.
The depth and refinement of their sound and its rusticity seems to come from deep within the Viennese woods, sumptuously cushioned by the sonorous low horns (led by their composer-in-residence, Florian Janezic, Hannes Marehard and Anna Staedler.) The unbridled vitality of this bunch of some 20 people in total whose ages were as varied as the dynamics was inspirational to any aspiring musician.

Thanks to the planning and foresight of the VHOS who have a varied skill set beyond horn playing, the group were billeted in an ancient Georgian mansion, ‘Burn House’ set in 191 acres of oak and birch woodland. It slept 20, had a library, a bar and a games room, where nightly a table tennis tournament raged, presided over by Gottfried Pfaffl who played horn with a similar zenmaster calm. Outside there was a football pitch, croquet and tennis facilities, which the group, despite the vast sucking area of low pressure over Scotland, put to good use. Best of all it had an enormous roaring fire and an ever-replenished log pile to complete the country retreat. The living room doubled as a rehearsal space and was generally occupied well into the wee hours: horns on every chair, piles of music balanced everywhere as were whisky glasses – generally atop hornplayers… The worst for wear was probably actually the carpet which probably hadn’t seen such a drenching. (We went to a whisky distillery in Fettercairn – I couldn’t help thinking if you wanted to see microbial lifeforms and a twitching gurgling growth of fermenting bacterial life you just had to look at the carpet in the living room after a rehearsal. I rather think Vera the housekeeper had similar dark thoughts on the matter)



It’s hard to pick out a highlight from the week – whether it was them perilously balanced with their music stands beside the rushing white water of the North Esk playing 'Kasperll in der Schlucht' (premiering on You Tube I believe) or an intrepid quartet hanging from the lower branches of an ancient oak tree playing hunting laments as the sun dipped over the snow-fringed hills of Glen Esk, or Peter’s magnificent organ playing in Stirling's Church of the Holy Rude – who thought any single instrument could match 12 fortissimo horns? There was the Bruckner 7th, compressed from 60 lugubrious minutes to a taut dynamic 6 eliding into an arrangement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony aka The Hovis Ad. There was Florian’s resounding sonic meditations on both Scottish and Austrian history in the fearsome ‘Battle of Stirling Bridge’, ‘Andreas Hofer’ and ‘Robert the Bruce’, played one golden evening on the sweeping staircase of Burn House as Azis conducted from the balcony and the chandelier trembled fitfully.

The virtuosity of playing is accompanied by a steadfast commitment to getting pissed and whooping it up, which the Scots and Southerners also surpassed themselves in. (I never thought I’d see the day when the genteel, mannered Martin Prowse would be seen at the Brechin City-Peterhead match bawling football chants with a bunch of tattooed hardened Peterhead supporters who managed to build an instant rapport with the group considerably helped by them changing sides to support Peterhead instead of Brechin at half time – who went on to win…) Talk was not just of valve oil and mouth piece size, and how many times you’ve played the Blue Danube (a common preoccupation of the Austrian freelancer). It occurred to me that there was no need for intercultural exchange here – for all the Fraoch Ale and haggis, tartan and Sacher Torte floating around, it struck me that the Vienna horn is a state of mind as much as a geographic designation.



Then quite suddenly, like a couple of migratory birds blown off course in the storm, a couple showed up at the fireplace in matching spectacles. They had arrived at the house for a quiet weekend. They had been informed prior to their arrival that there was a touring orchestra billeted here, but for some reason they did not think that would infringe on a romantic get away for two. I sensed a hint of territorial dispute over the fireplace that night but it was 2 versus 20. They sat there, heads down feet up, we’re here for a quiet weekend and we’re not budging, heads firmly in the relaxing holiday reading. Around them a sea of horn players. Eventually they took their holiday reading and retired. Martin, the VHOS diplomat, spent a considerable time trying to smooth ruffled feathers but I rather think ‘The Battle of the Burn House Living Room’ was already lost. They were perhaps mollified with front row seats to the private Burn House concert. (though I’m not sure that front row seats are always the best idea!)


The last night, I do believe exhaustion had finally set in for our Siegfrieds and Rhine Maidens. I could barely keep my eyes open. Not a horn was picked up the whole evening for the first time that week. People trooped off to bed at vaguely respectable hours. By one am, the only sound was the oystercatchers, the wind in the trees, the creaking of the ancient plumbing of Burn House and of course, the two Peters Hoffmayer and Putzer who never went to bed anyway. It would seem that quiet had at last descended. Yet I heard a vague report from Sarah, of a parting gift to the foothills of Glen Esk. She was awoken at 3am by the sound of Sigfried’s Horncall coming from the lawn. The top C rang out, of such a refinement and quality, that there could be only one possible suspect and it wasn’t the ghost of Gottfried Von Frieberg...

It’s always hard to make sound live on paper, so I leave you with the words of Edward Seckerson: ‘It’s the Austrian way. Accept no substitute.’

Photos by Fiona Halliday