Sadly, our good friend, the French Horn player Ifor James, passed away at his home in Titisee-Neustadt near Freiburg, Germany, on the 23rd December 2004. He had been an astounding survivor of cancer for many years.

Anthony Morris:

I personally first met Ifor about 30 years ago when I was a young horn student in London. My fellow students and I were in awe of this man with "chops of steel" and a seemingly unattainable technique. We would follow him around to concerts where he would play not one, but all four Mozart Horn Concertos in one concert without cracking a note, and throwing in the fragment from the fifth concerto for good measure. One of his most memorable party pieces being the Csárdás by Monti, (yes, it's difficult enough on the violin). His musicianship was astounding with his recording of the second Richard Strauss Concerto being one of the best available.

I met up with Ifor again about 5 years ago here in Germany after he had started playing horn again, defiantly intent on not giving in to his illness. We made some recordings with Ifor conducting some of his pupils including Gregory Cass (Solo Horn, Orchestra of the Swiss Romande in Geneva) and Frank Lloyd (international soloist and Professor at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen).

Ifor expressed a desire to make a "teaching lecture on video" so that "a future generation of students could see how he had managed it with the last lot" so we sat down and taped some 6 hours of basic teaching of horn playing technique. These will be made available probably via edited short lectures on a website in the not too distant future with a polite request for donations to benefit his wife Helen who survives him.

In the last weeks, even whilst undergoing treatment, Ifor was busy finishing arrangements for new publications and generally getting his act together. After a few weeks in hospital Ifor returned home last week and seemed quite cheery when I spoke with him last Wednesday, after what he called, with customary joviality, "quite a late night out with friends down at the local restaurant". Typical Ifor, an infectiously happy chap who could entertain a full concert hall as easily as a table of guests energetically for a whole evening. Passionate about Football (soccer) he was a professional player of that sport for a short time in his youth.

Ifor's father was the top cornet player in Britain and his mother was Ena Mitchell, the soprano (one of the original soloists in Ralph Vaughan-Williams' "Ode to Music"). Ifor himself started to play the cornet at the age of four, later taking up the piano and organ and becoming assistant organist at Carlisle Cathedral during his teens.

It was in this period that he took up the horn, later entering the Royal Academy of Music as a pupil of Aubrey Brain (father of Dennis). His first professional appointment was with the Hallé Orchestra and after only two years he became principal horn with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – at the age of 22.

In 1963 he moved to London and played principal horn with eventually all the leading orchestras before becoming a soloist. He subsequently was in great demand playing all over the world as well as developing a substantial discography, including 30 recordings as the horn player in the renowned Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. He was also for some years the principal conductor of the famous Besses o’th Barn Brass Band; under his baton they won the 1978 BBC Band of the Year Competition.

Ifor has a long and distinguished career as a teacher and he has been a professor of music at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music. In 1980 he was appointed professor of horn and brass chamber music at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany. Ifor composed many works for the horn and has published books on learning and playing the horn. Many composers have dedicated works to Ifor.

Well over 100 of his pupils have become professional musicians, with over 30 of them currently principal horn players with orchestras not only in England but in Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Nine are now professors at music colleges around the world, two are the principals of German music colleges and a further six have a career as soloist. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland in 2003.

see www.ifor-james.de