I Found My Horn

One Man's Struggle With The Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument

Jasper Rees

At the age of 39 and three quarters, Jasper Rees fished his French horn out of the attic and took it to the British Horn Society festival. Along with 69 other horn players, he stood onstage and played Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. There and then, despite severely limited ability, he set himself a near impossible target: to stand up in front of a paying audience in twelve months' time and play a Mozart concerto. Alone.

I FOUND MY HORN is the story of a midlife crisis spent with 18 feet of wrapped brass tubing. It is also the story of man's first musical instrument, and its journey from the walls of Jericho to Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, from the hunting fields of aristocratic France to the heart of Hollywood. Along the way, Jasper Rees seeks expert advice as he prepares to stand up in front of a packed London auditorium and perform a Mozart concerto on this notoriously treacherous instrument. Everyone says the same thing. Don't do it.