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    Unavailable
    Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument
    Unavailable
    Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument
    Unavailable
    Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument
    Ebook387 pages6 hours

    Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument

    By Jasper Rees

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A charming and deeply funny memoir of musical obsession, A Devil to Play is the story of Jasper Rees, a man who unearths his childhood French horn, and begins a quixotic but obsessively serious challenge: to play a Mozart concerto—alone—for a paying audience within one year’s time. It’s an endearing, inspiring tale of perseverance and achievement, relayed masterfully, one side-splittingly off-key note at a time.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061979712
    Unavailable
    Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument
    Author

    Jasper Rees

    Jasper Rees is an arts journalist and author who has contributed regularly to many British publications. His books include I Found My Horn: One Man's Struggle with the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument (published as A Devil to Play in the US), Bred of Heaven: One Man's Quest to Reclaim His Welsh Roots and the biography of Florence Foster Jenkins which coincided with the release of the feature film starring Meryl Streep. He lives in London.

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    Reviews for Devil to Play

    4/5

    25 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I feel as tho i am reading my own story!! Picked up my horn after 20 years at age of 40... first concerto i tackle in lessons.... mozart 447. This is great.... i love the laughs as well as the information!!!
    • 5/5
      Entertaining and informative. As a lifelong advanced amateur classical music string player, I thought he was crazy to attempt his goal, but was cheering for him to achieve it.
    • 5/5
      Rees is an engaging writer. The blend of memoir and music history is just right. I didn't feel that I totally understood why he picked up the French horn again in the first place, but I thoroughly enjoyed his narrative of what happened over the next year.
    • 5/5
      Rees is an engaging writer. The blend of memoir and music history is just right. I didn't feel that I totally understood why he picked up the French horn again in the first place, but I thoroughly enjoyed his narrative of what happened over the next year.
    • 3/5
      Did you play a musical instrument in high school, only to give it up as soon as you graduated? Did you ever wonder what it would be like to pick it up again and perform in front of other musicians?Well, Jasper Rees did. As he approaches the age of 40 he pulls his old french horn out of the case and attends the British Horn Society's annual convention. After playing in the mass horn choir, he decides to start practicing again with the goal of playing a solo at next year's convention. This book is about his journey of relearning the horn. Along the way he meets and takes lessons with some of the horn world's most famous players. Intertwined with his personal journey is a history of the horn.I am a professional horn player and I found this book pretty amusing. The author definitely embraces the horn and I would have to say becomes a raging "horn-dork". This was mildly annoying to me because I know too many people who are like this. But, it was fun to read since I've met and worked with many of the horn players in the book. I even attended the "horn camp" that he attends - twice. (Who's the horn-dork now???) Anyway, if you ever played the horn you will probably enjoy this book. Or if you remember your high school band days playing any instrument, this book may give you a few laughs or possibly a little inspiration to give it another go!