WIUM: Keeping the Sounds of the Season (2006-12-11)

For more than a quarter of a century, Walter Lawson and his sons, Bruce and Paul, have built French horns in a cluttered shop in the mountains of Western Maryland. Their instruments have been played by the finest horn players in the world in concert halls from London to Tokyo to New York. But Walter is getting on in years and they are selling the business.

IC: I'm having some problems, physical problems, and so, and I'm 83 years old, and, uhh, the boys want to get into some other things, so we just decided maybe it's maybe time to hang it up".
Kendall Betts, who was the principal horn in the Minnesota Symphony until 2004 and now plays in chamber groups and teaches in New Hampshire, is taking over and moving the operation north.

IC: "Walt's done great things, they've done great things, I can carry it on, I think. And it's a challenge for me at my age to be doing this".

Betts is 59. News of the sale has been met with nostalgia in the close-knit world of horn players. Emil George, a free lance musician in Washington DC and founder and artistic director of the Fessenden Ensemble, has been playing a Lawson for 16 years. He says this is the end of an era.

IC: "The horn is a notorious instrument for many people and has always had a reputation as one of the most difficult instruments and they have made an instrument that enables us to really enjoy our craft and what we do".

Lawson performed for years with the Baltimore Symphony and set up his own part time instrument repair business on the side. But the nights of driving back and forth to concerts far from the city wore on him. And besides, he was making more money repairing instruments than playing in the orchestra. He set up shop out in the woods, where you're more likely to see deer or an occasional bear than the professional musicians he was targeting. But he found customers in other circles as well.

IC: "But the second year we built a horn for a high school girl in Texas. We've built horns for nuns, priests, doctors, lawyers, you know, we've built horns for a lot of people you might call dilettantes".
Lawson says these musical marvels start as a box of parts.

IC: "This is the levers, these are slide tubes, these are the crooks. These crooks will have tubes soldered on like that and this crook is a certain length and this is what the valve operates".

Sure, it sounds simple, but those crooks and bell tails and flares are made from metal alloys that the Lawsons have been experimenting with for years. George says no other horn maker can match them.

IC: "I can't tell you how many times people come up to me and they'll say I've never heard a horn with such a beautiful sound. Now a horn doesn't do everything. It is a player, too. But the fact is that this metal does have some particularly beautiful quality to it that truly makes their horns magical. To get an idea of that sound, here's George, practicing Alan Hovhaness' Artik Concerto for a concert in May. Betts says he'll keep the operation in Boonsboro through the end of the year, then start setting up in New Hampshire with the Lawsons as consultants.
I'm Joel McCord, reporting in Boonsboro, for 88-1, WYPR.