Koechlin was a pupil of Faure and a teacher of Poulenc and Milhaud, helped Ravel and Schmitt to found the Societe Musical Independante in 1909, was chosen by Debussy to orchestrate his Khamma and invited by Satie to join a group called Les Nouveaux Jeunes when they were both over 50!—it never formed, but Les Six did instead. He had a long life (1867-1950), but his music passed out of fashion between the wars and much of his time went into teaching and writing books. Yet he still composed until the year of his death, and his vast chamber catalogue (which includes pieces for musical saw) rather favours wind instruments. Most of this material is virtually unknown, but these horn works, some still unpublished, certainly deserve this presentation by a master of the instrument.
The Sonata (1925) offers idiomatic writing and varied moods, those of a moonlit forest glade and the hunt being among them: its Andante has a serene simplicity and as for the finale, Koechlin said it ''might take place somewhere near the sea''. While not obviously striking music, it gives us the reward of feeling that we have been with a thoughtful, sensitive and quietly creative mind. The first of the 15 Pieces (1942) is marked ''Dans la foret romantique'', and it says something for the composer's invention that all have character; but in No. 4, a scherzo, the pianist's rhythm is inexact and there are strange clicking noises. Numbers 2 and 8 are for four hunting horns: the composer owned one of these instruments and wrote sympathetically for its sound and natural harmonics, which are oddly fascinating when we hear them in chords. Here Barry Tuckwell multi-tracks, playing a Holton natural horn with a D crook, as he also does in his selection from the composer's many and often beautiful sonneries for two, three or four horns; elsewhere he uses a Holton H104. This is a valuable record, and not just for the specialist. The piano sound is rather unfocused, but that of the horn allows us to appreciate Tuckwell's artistry and control. Incidentally, the little unaccompanied Morceau de Lecture, beautifully shaped here, includes the top C sharp which is harmonic No. 17—quite a hurdle for a student, I would imagine—while the eighteenth and twentieth harmonics (on the horn in D) are heard in track 24, the fifth in the selection of sonneries.'