Nicolas Bochsa – Nocturne op. 50 No. 1 for Horn (or Oboe/Clarinet) and Harp
Robert Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (1789–1856) was a French composer and one of the greatest harp virtuosos of his time. He was born on 9 August 1789 in Montmédy (Meuse), France, the son of the oboist Charles Bochsa. From 1807 he studied harp at the Paris Conservatoire and worked at the French court from 1813 to 1817. He published numerous solo works for harp and issued his own harp method. Some of these works were published by his own publishing house – his father, the oboist Charles Bochsa, had already run his own music publishing business. On the harp he invented numerous techniques, such as the possibility of a "chromatic flageolet".
Numerous personal transgressions – he forged documents and committed bigamy – forced him to leave the respective country several times.
This does not seem to have diminished his musical charisma: from 1822 to 1827 he was professor of harp at the Royal Academy of Music in London, after which he went on a world tour. In 1839 he eloped with Anna Rivière-Bishop, the wife of the English ballet and opera composer Henry Rowley Bishop. Together with her, a singer, he undertook extensive concert tours. He died on 6 January 1856 in Sydney, Australia.
The present Nocturne op. 50 No. 1 was written around 1815 in collaboration with the oboist Garnier, similar to the Trio op. 3 (Order No. ROM 054). It was therefore originally intended for oboe or, alternatively, clarinet in C.
The horn player Joseph-Émile Meifred (1791–1867), a pupil of Frederic Duvernoy and Louis-François Dauprat and horn player at the Opéra as well as the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris, arranged this work for horn; it was published around 1825 by the Parisian publishing house Schonenberger. Meifred was the pioneer of the valve horn in France and taught the valve horn class at the Paris Conservatoire as professor from 1833. He composed several works for horn and, with his "Méthode pour le Cor Chromatique ou à Pistons" – first published in 1840 and reissued in 1849 – produced an important method for the valve horn. After retiring from the Opéra orchestra in 1850, he resigned from his post at the Conservatoire in 1864 – at the age of 72 and three years before his death – a position that was subsequently not filled again! It was not until 1897 that the natural horn professor François Brémond unofficially introduced valve horn lessons, before the class was officially reinstated in 1903.
This edition includes, in addition to the horn part, the oboe part and a transposed clarinet part in Bb.
Nocturne op. 50