The Business Review by John Aubrey, Cornucopia, September 1996
Julian Baker	Jeffrey Bryant	Frank Lloyd	John Pigneguy	Paul Pritchard

When Marilyn Kloss asked me to review The Business, I was intrigued, as I had been eyeing the book on the shelf for quite a while. As it turns out, the loss was mine for having waited so long. This book is a real pleasure.

The book is a compilation of essays by five preeminent British horn players: Jeffrey Bryant, Julian Baker, John Pigneguy, Frank Lloyd, and Paul Pritchard. While some of these names might be more familiar to us than others, we are guaranteed to have heard each of them many times, on CDs, movie or television soundtracks, in pop music, or in opera broadcasts.

Though broken into chapters roughly outlining each player's area of expertise, this reference book is universal in its content and appeal. These weathered professionals explain their ideas on everything from practice habits, auditioning, recording, and chamber music to playing substitute in a show orchestra. The book's subtitle says it well: "The essential guide to starting and surviving as a professional hornplayer." There are thousands of crucial items in this book, many of which are obvious to most players, but all of which bear repeating. Advice is given not only on how to get a position, but also on how to keep it! There is no better teacher than experience, and experience is what these five players have in spades. The fruit of their work is listed here for our benefit.

Musically, London is the music world in microcosm. The major orchestras, recording studios, opera and ballet companies, period instrument groups, and shows are all based there. Players are adept at molding themselves (quickly!) to the genre at hand. This book emphasizes that the business of horn playing is too competitive for us to pigeonhole ourselves, and it gives valuable advice on how to meet the challenge. But perhaps more importantly, this book is also about Music. Each of the players emphasizes how crucial it is to enjoy making music, and what better aid to enjoyment than the proper preparation?

As to the question of how relevant a book about the British horn world is in the US, my answer is: very! Any real differences are minute and mostly only a matter of semantics; they call assistants "bumpers" and contractors "fixers"; otherwise, just about everything in this book is directly analogous to the way things work in the US. The Business fills an empty spot in the horn literature; it is the first book that tells us what to do once we have learned how to play the horn. This is a highly useful reference guide that has the added benefit of being well written and entertaining to read.

John was a student of Danny Katzen at BU and is an active free-lancer in Boston (Arcadian Winds, natural horn with H&H) and on tour with NYC Opera. Email John at ALPCOR@aol.com. The book is available at Osmun Music

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