Peter Damm

Peter Damm is a German horn player, teacher and researcher whose career brought together orchestral playing, solo performance and a sustained interest in the history and performance practice of the horn.

Born in Meiningen, Thuringia, in 1937, Damm began his musical education on the violin before taking up the horn with Franz Nauber. He subsequently studied with Karl Biehlig at the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar. His professional orchestral career began in Gera, and in 1959 he became solo horn of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Ten years later he joined the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden as solo horn, remaining with the orchestra until 2002. On his retirement, the Staatskapelle appointed him an honorary member.

Alongside his orchestral work, Damm developed an extensive career as a soloist and chamber musician, appearing throughout Europe as well as in the Americas and Japan. His repertoire extended from eighteenth-century music to contemporary works, including first performances, while his recordings documented both the standard horn repertoire and his long association with the Dresden orchestral tradition.

Richard Strauss occupied a particularly important place in his performing and scholarly work. Damm first performed Strauss’s First Horn Concerto in 1957 and eventually played the work 157 times, the last of these performances taking place in Osaka in 2000. His work on Strauss went beyond performance: he also undertook research into the composer’s music for horn, bringing together practical experience and the study of sources and performance questions.

That combination of performance and research became an important feature of Damm’s work more broadly. He prepared editions of major works in the horn repertoire and devoted particular attention to questions of historical performance practice, articulation, ornamentation and the development of the instrument. His approach was that of a player examining historical evidence in order to understand how the music might have been conceived and performed.

This aspect of his work is particularly well represented in Brass Bulletin. Across fifteen contributions, Damm examined subjects ranging from articulation in Mozart’s horn concertos to eighteenth-century ornamentation and the history of the horn. His two-part survey 300 Years of the Horn explored the instrument’s development and the Dresden court tradition, while a later three-part study investigated the corne da caccia part in Bach’s B minor Mass and its possible connection with Gottfried Reiche. He also wrote about the Staatskapelle Dresden, horn playing in the German Democratic Republic and his former teacher Karl Biehlig.

Teaching formed another major part of Damm’s career. He taught for many years at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden and gave masterclasses, seminars and workshops in Europe, Japan and North America. His pedagogical work, like his publications and editions, grew out of the close relationship between orchestral experience, technical understanding and historical study that marked his career.

Damm was also closely involved with the International Instrumental Competition in Markneukirchen, serving as its president for many years, and became an honorary member of the International Horn Society. His career was recognized through a number of competition prizes and professional distinctions, beginning with international competitions in Moscow, Munich and Prague during the early years of his professional life.

Peter Damm’s contribution to the horn extends well beyond his long tenure in two of Germany’s major orchestras. Through performance, teaching, editions, recordings and historical research, he helped connect the living orchestral tradition of the instrument with a deeper investigation of its repertoire and history. His writings for Brass Bulletin provide an especially clear record of that combination of practical musicianship and historical curiosity.