A Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument

by Rees, Jasper

• ISBN13: 9780061626623
• ISBN10: 0061626627
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780061979712
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

In the days before his fortieth birthday, London-based journalist Jasper Rees traded his pen for a French horn that had been gathering dust in the attic for more than twenty-two years and, on a lark, played it at the annual festival of the British Horn Society. Despite an embarrassingly poor performance, the experience inspired Rees to embark on a daunting, bizarre, and ultimately winning journey: to return to the festival in one year's time and play a Mozart concerto-solo-to a large paying audience.A Devil to Play is the true story of an unlikely midlife crisis spent conquering eighteen feet of wrapped brass tubing widely regarded as the most difficult instrument in the world to master-an endearing, inspiring tale of perseverance and achievement, relayed masterfully, one side-splittingly off-key note at a time.

Author Biography

A journalist with two decades of experience, JASPER REES has written for The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, the Evening Standard, and The Times. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Exposition	p. 1
In the Beginning Was the Horn	p. 21
The Ipso Factor	p. 41
Who Is This Bethover?	p. 59
Le Son Du Boa	p. 87
Ass, Ox, and Fool	p. 117
Hold It Like a Man!	p. 155
Without Fear of Death	p. 185
Holly Wouldn't	p. 219
The Act You've Known for All These Years	p. 249
The Pass Door	p. 279
Bibliography	p. 305
Acknowledgments	p. 309
Index	p. 313
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