Foes Reunited

I gave up the French horn at the age of seventeen, on leaving school. I took up the horn again on the verge of forty. My visit to the British Horn Society’s annual festival, and reason for resuming the instrument, are described in the book’s introductory chapter, “Exposition”. The germ of that chapter can be found in an article for the arts page of the Daily Telegraph, for whom I have written on and off since my early twenties. Though I have written for them very regularly in the past ten years, it was quite hard work to persuade the arts editor to commission the piece. If he hadn’t once been third horn of the Salford Youth Orchestra, I’d have had no chance, and this book may never have been written. So thank you, Paul. In the article I described the weekend I spent in Southampton at the BHS festival with horn players of all ages and abilities. Once it came to writing the book, I never seriously considered rewriting the opening paragraph. It kind of said it all. This is the Telegraph article that was published early in 2005, with pictures by Christopher Cox. They called it “Friends Reunited – the instrumental version”.

Daily Telegraph article