Stefan Dohr on Richard Ayres’s NONcerto (5 min.)

The English composer Richard Ayres, born in 1965, has already written a whole series of NONcertos, works which use humour and respectful irony to question the tradition of the solo concerto. At a Late Night concert in February 2016, members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle performed a programme which included Ayres’s NONcerto for Horn and large ensemble. The soloist was the Philharmoniker’s principal horn, Stefan Dohr. The performance demanded not only virtuosity and tonal beauty but physical fitness, too. For example, in order for the soloist to produce his own echo, he is required to rush again and again from one side of the stage to the other. In this video, Stefan Dohr talks about the many challenges of this composition.