Decca’s latest signing is just 16

Decca’s latest signing is just 16

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norman lebrecht

May 13, 2016

Decca have signed their first recorder player.

Lucie Horsch is Dutch, 16 years old and madly in love with her instrument. She says: ‘There are five-hundred different fingerings, so you can really colour your playing with different choices. And vibrato gives yet another level of expression. Even though the recorder has a smaller dynamic range than, for example, the violin or the cello the potential for expressive detail and nuance is enormous.’

lucie horsch

First release in October.

Comments

  • Doug says:

    No, the recorder offers very little in the way of variation of intensity or color. Why do you think it was abandoned in the mid-eighteenth century? Where it does excel is the capacity for a wide range of articulation. Arguing otherwise is pure nonsense and a craven marketing ploy.

  • Nigel Harper says:

    So, this is the first new artist signing by the new Decca management! I have nothing against the recorder, but signing a sixteen year old recorder player from the Netherlands is really scraping the barrel. Meanwhile Decca ignores major artists who were once prolific recording artists and are today among the most renowned soloists, artists like Jean-Yves Thibaudet to name but one. But no, the brilliant minds at Universal Classics ignore talent that is right in front of them and go to extremes, signing sixteen year old recorder players. How long will this farce for a company and management continue?

  • Anon says:

    She looks sufficiently exploitable. Hopefully it pays off for the shareholders.

  • Marg says:

    As a recorder player I say HOORAY!

  • herrera says:

    Remember Lara St. John and her 1997 Bach album cover with her strategically placed violin like a bra over her bare chest? http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Violin-Lara-St-John/dp/B000003Y32

    Followed in 2003 by another Bach album cover in which her actual bra strap is falling off her shoulders. http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/lara-bach?song=1

    I wonder where the marketers for Decca will place Lucie Horsch’s many different size recorders on her album cover.

  • Heather says:

    Just seen Lucie Horsch in concert with the AAM. And want to see her again. Total genius. And for once, I wasn’t the youngest person in the audience (I’m 52 and often feel the rest of them are a good 10 years older than me). She’s now 19 and must be the only artist I’ve ever seen who in person looks younger than her publicity shots (most look at least 10 years older). Such talent, such enthusiasm and such expression using an instrument that is normally massacred by 8-year olds.

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