Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (1789–1856) was a French composer and harp virtuoso in his time. He was the son of an oboe player and worked at the French Court 1813-1817. He published numerous solo works for harp and one harp school. Some of his works were published by his own publishing house. On the harp he invented several techniques such as the way to play a chromatic flageolet.
Numerous transgressions (document forgery, bigamy and so on) made him leave several times the respective country.
On the other hand, he was a very famous and esteemed musician and composer. From 1822 to 1827, he was professor for harp at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Then he toured through the whole world. He died in 1856 after a colorful life in Australia.
Nocturne op. 3 for horn, oboe and harp
The present work, Nocturne op. 3, was published in 1810 by Bochsa himself in Paris. At that time, he published several Nocturnes for harp with the accompaniment of other instruments such as oboe, horn and clarinet.
There is a nice and, for the time, not common note on the title page of the print. It says that the oboe part was written by Garnier and the horn part by F. Jacomin. It can be assumed that Bochsa consulted these musicians while composing the work and also performed it together with them.
This work, with its novel instrumentation, belongs to a distinct epoch of no less beautiful music, which is being rediscovered today.
