To music lovers of a certain age the name Dennis Brain conjours up memories of the greatest horn player of his generation, perhaps the greatest of all time, who died fifty years ago next week. He was driving back to London from the Edinburgh Festival through the night in his TR2, when his car left the road just twelve miles from home and buried itself into an elm tree, killing its driver instantly. Many of us have clear memories of hearing his death announced on the news on that Sunday morning at the start of September, at the age of thirty-six. He was a legend in his own lifetime, admired the world over. Younger listeners will be aware of his many recordings, both as a soloist and as a member of Beecham’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra or the Philharmonia. Indeed, his performances of Mozart’s four Horn Concertos have never been out of the catalogue. What few people are aware of, though, are his associations with Petersfield.

Dennis’s father was an equally famous horn player, who studied with Adolf Borsdorf, one of the founders of the London Symphony Orchestra, who fixed all the wind and brass players for the Petersfield Festival in the days of Sir Hugh Allen before the First War. Borsdorf and his son, Emil, were regular members of the orchestra which played at the old Drill Hall.

Whilst a student at the Royal Academy, Dennis studied the piano with Max Pirani, who later retired to live in Harting with his wife, Lelia. They were great supporters of the Harting Music Club, which Don Francombe founded in 1968. He returned to the Academy after wartime service with the RAF, and it was there that he met Yvonne Coles, a fellow student. Her father was a respected Petersfield accountant, and Dennis and Yvonne were married at St. Peter’s Church on 8 September 1945.

He returned to Petersfield as a soloist on several occasions, three times for Kathleen Merritt and the Southern Orchestral Concert Society and in 1953 at the Petersfield Musical Festival It was with Kathleen Merritt, too, that he gave the world premiere of the Concertino for Horn and Strings by Maurice Blower, a local composer of some repute, in May 1951, a work he repeated in London two years later. Dr. Blower was a stalwart of the Festival, serving on the committee for fifty years before becoming President in 1977.

The security of Brain’s technique may have been equalled by some horn players since , but none have equalled his youthful exuberance, smooth tone, clear articulation and distinctive phrasing. As one distinguished American critic wrote, “His playing, especially in quiet passages, is as the strength of ten.” He inspired many of the greatest composers of the time, including Britten and Hindemith, to compose works specially for him. Those of us who heard him play can never forget his sound; even when we hear him hidden within an orchestra on a record, we immediately say, “That’s Dennis Brain.”

Tom Muckley, August 2007

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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