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A great recording that is not much known by now several generations of horn players is The Intimate Bach, Vol. 2, which includes a side featuring Vincent DeRosa and Laurindo Alemeida playing the Partita in Bb. On the hundredth birthday of DeRosa (born Oct. 5, 1920) it is an excellent day to look back on this classic recording.
DeRosa has been called “the most recorded horn player in history.” Beyond his extensive studio work in Hollywood, turning to the Wikipedia,
DeRosa was also an accomplished classical player. He was the hornist on the album The Intimate Bach which received a Grammy Nomination for Best Classical Performance – Chamber Music (1962). Music critic Alfred Frankenstein wrote of DeRosa’s performance on this record, “This is the most astonishing example of virtuosity on the horn I have ever heard on records…To play as lightly and speedily as a harpsichord, right out in the open with a minimum of support, is to give an incredible performance.”
I first stumbled upon this recording as an undergrad, and have always loved this recording. I have a copy of the LP, and also recently was able to obtain a copy of the sheet music. It is part of a series of recordings by Alemeida (1917– 1995), a Brazilian guitarist in classical, jazz, and Latin music, a crossover artist before that was common. There is so much clarity in the guitar playing, and they both exhibit artistry of the highest level on this album.
Jim Patterson offered the following background on the recording.
Vince told me that he had been contacted by Laurindo Almeida in advance and was sent the part but was so busy he hadn’t really had a chance to look at it. So he was pretty much sight reading at the session…. They had Vince in a small isolation booth, with a bunch of padding and close mic’d. He remembers having to play very softly, while the Guitar had to play as loud as possible. There was only a small window to see each other through. Vince listened to the playback when they had finished and was not impressed at all. He thought they should dump the whole thing! In retrospect, if they had let the horn play in the large room and put the guitar in the isolation booth, the sound would have certainly been much better. From a technical aspect, the playing is extraordinary.
So, now that we have your attention, how can you hear this recording today? This is why people collect LP records, as the DeRosa/Alemeida recording is so far as I can tell not available today in any other format. This is really one worth asking around for among older horn players that have LPs, I highly recommend giving it a listen on a good stereo.
[See UPDATE at end for an exciting piece of news!]
But you can get some sense of the classic DeRosa/Alemeida recording in this more recent release by James Thatcher. What Thatcher does is play his own version of the work a fourth higher than DeRosa, and with piano instead of guitar, so it has bit different feel – but is also highly impressive horn playing. So after enjoying the below examples (the first two movements of the work, the first being the same as the musical excerpt above, and the second being the most technical movement), work on finding the original by DeRosa, it will be worth your time.
Finally, for a bit of DeRosa from the same year as the Bach recording, check out this famous theme:
UPDATE: In November of 2020 Dylan Skye Hart and Andrew Synowiec released their version on Youtube the of J.S. Bach: Partita No.1 in Bb major, BWV 825, from the original parts! Wonderful playing! Take a listen below:
