Melba Recordings

The Music Lover and the Maestro

Under the baton of Barry Tuckwell AC OBE, one of the world’s greatest horn players, Sydney musician Ben Jacks has recorded a work for horn and orchestra—a work commissioned by the well-known Australian comedian Barry Humphries AO, from French composer Jean-Michel Damase.

After a distinguished career overseas as an orchestra player and as a soloist, Barry Tuckwell has returned to Australia. The Melba Foundation is delighted to have Mr Tuckwell as one of our ambassadors.

As well as the Damase piece the disc includes the rarely heard Horn Phantasy written by GWL Marshall Hall (1862–1915), the founder of the University of Melbourne’s Conservatorium (now Faculty) of Music and, incidentally the first composer to write an opera with an Australian setting (Stella).

This horn recording is another in which Melba is collaborating with Orchestra Victoria whose splendid playing is receiving world-wide critical acclaim. The critic reviewing La somnambule in the American Record Guide has “Special praise for the splendid sound of the winds and horns ... superlative playing by Orchestra Victoria ...