Trios for 3 Horns

That celebrity of composers and quality of music can not be weighed with the same measures and unknown compositions might be of high quality, can be proved by the following works of the hornist Carl Oestreich.

Carl Wilhelm Eduard Oestreich was born on April 18, 1800, in Spremberg, a small town in the Niederlausitz, in Saxony. 18 April 1800. He was the oldest son of Johann Carl Gottfried Oestreich, a town musician in Spremberg. Little is known of his youth, except that he received his early education in the Royal Chapel in Dresden, maybe by the members of the Court Orchestra August and Louis Haase. In 1830 Oestreich dedicated a published set of horn trios to his "venerated friends" the Haase brothers.

Oestreich moved to Frankfurt in 1820. This is corroborated by an autograph title page to a set of parts for "Andante con Variation" for horn and orchestra signed "C. Oestreich; Frankfurt a/M 1820". In the city "Aufgebot Buch" of 1822-1825, Oestreich registered his intend to marry Johanna Christina Emilie Pezold on August 1, 1824, and he was described in that document as a member of the local Theatre Orchestra. He was married on October 12, 1824, in Spremberg. Existing Frankfurt Theatre almanacs indicate that Oestreich was a member of the horn section (second horn) until 1832, when he was pensioned because of an illness or disability. He remained on a pension until his death in 1840.

Oestreich's music for his own instrument remained unpublished, with the exception of a set of twelve trios for three horns which were published by Dust in Frankfurt around 1830. The great majority of Oestreich's solo horn works are for "second" horn. Many of the great virtuosi were second horn players: Punto, Carl Thürrschmidt and Dauprat, for example. It is evident that Oestreich, too, was naturally a second horn player. All but one of the works for solo horn are in second horn range; only the "Thema con Variation" is for a "corno primo".

The new edited works for three and four horns are kept at the Frankfurt Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek. The horn quartets (Sign. Mus Hs 793) and the horn trios (Mus Hs 791 & 792) show Oestreich's obvious knowledge of the horn and his interest in experimenting. The reviewer of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung stated that these trios would be easier on the new valve horn, which was being introduced almost everywhere. Although the new valve instruments were better in chromatical matter, they lack in colour and tone. The so called disadvantage of stopping tones and their muted tones was often changed to an advantage by some composers. Minor passages are more plastic and sensitive, stopped tones are strict and aggressiv in forte but they do not dominate the orchestra. Schumann and especially Brahms loved therefore the natural horn and called the valve horn "Blechgeige" (metallic violin").