This disc is a must for all horn-players and lovers of music for horn since it is a celebration of the talents and undoubted virtuosity of the American, Lowell Greer, on three natural horns, all of which were made in France. The major work on the disc is Brahms's Horn Trio, in which Greer and the pianist Steven Lubin play on instruments made in the 1850s, only ten years before the work was composed. To those of us accustomed to big booming performances on modern instruments, it takes time to acclimatize to the veiled quality of Greer's horn-playing and the slightly dead quality of Lubin's Bosendorfer. There are advantages, though, since both instruments blend naturally with Stephanie Chase's small-toned, but lyrical, violin-playing. Morever, the lower registers of Brahms's piano writing, which can sound muddy on modern instruments, have an admirable clarity here. In general, the performance is very enjoyable, though I feel that the tempo of the opening Andante is just a touch too slow.
For Beethoven's Horn Sonata, Greer takes an instrument made in 1795 while Lubin moves to a copy of a fortepiano by Graf. The intonation and athletic virtuosity displayed by Greer is most remarkable, as is his range of tonal colour in the disc's curiosity, the Horn Sonata by Baron Nikolaus von Krufft who died in 1818 at the age of 39. While using all the musical cliches of his time, Krufft has an understanding of the character and ability of the horn, enabling him to write an idiomatic piece of indisputable charm which Greer and Lubin perform with obvious affection. It's this quality which is evident throughout the disc and which helps to make it so enjoyable to listen to.'