Excerpt BooksGet the parts! But get a couple of the best excerpt books too. John EricsonIf you are really serious about learning orchestral works you must have copies of the original orchestral parts, not an excerpt book. I spent years as a student Xeroxing parts to obtain a complete collection, a most necessary item for anyone really serious about auditions. For those not wanting to spend years collecting parts in this manner I recommend The Orchestral Audition Repertoire For Horn: Comprehensive and Unabridged published by Thompson Edition. Another great alternate are the PDF parts on CD, The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library, which are even more complete. For the initial learning of excerpts, however, excerpt books can certainly be useful. I recommend to my students either the Anthology of French Horn Music by Moore and Ettore, published by Mel Bay or the Horn Player’s Audition Handbook by Arthur LaBar, published by Belwin. The Anthology is to be especially noted for not only presenting well thought out and laid out excerpts, but for also giving good solid suggested metronome markings and other tips for every work, information that is alone well worth the cost of the volume. The only major shortcoming is that this publication has no Strauss, Mahler, or Wagner excerpts. The LaBar book has broader coverage (including major excerpts from Strauss, Mahler, and Wagner) and is more of a one stop source for initial excerpt study. Either book will work well, especially when supplemented with the actual orchestral parts. Copyright John Ericson. All rights reserved. |