Christopher Leuba in 2007, as an honorary member of the International Horn Society, La Chaux-de-fonds, Switzerland
We have just learned news of the death of Christopher Leuba, who served the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as principal horn from 1960 until 1962. He passed away peacefully at his home in Seattle on December 31, 2019, at the age of ninety.
Julian Christopher Leuba was born on September 28, 1929, in Pittsburgh and began playing the horn during his senior year at Allegheny High School. At the age of nineteen, he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra while a student at Carnegie Mellon University. Leuba served in the U.S. Army at West Point and the English Midlands, studied at the Tanglewood Festival, and he also was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago during the 1950-51 season.
Beethoven’s First and Ninth symphonies, recorded in 1961 with Fritz Reiner conducting for RCA
In England he studied with Aubrey Brain (father of Dennis Brain) and in Chicago with Philip Farkas (principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1936 until 1941 and 1947 until 1960). Leuba was a member of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under Antal Doráti for several years and served as principal horn, before Fritz Reiner invited him to succeed Farkas as principal horn in Chicago in 1960, a position he held for two seasons, until 1962. He can be heard on many CSO recordings for RCA under Reiner’s baton during that period, including Beethoven’s First, Sixth, and Ninth symphonies, as well as Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto and Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with Van Cliburn.
Leuba later was a member of the Philharmonia Hungarica, performed and taught at the Aspen Music Festival, and for twenty-three years was principal horn of the Portland Opera. As a member of the music faculty at the University of Washington, he was a longtime member of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet.
A sought-after educator and clinician, Leuba was also the author of A Study of Musical Intonation, Rules of the Game, Phrasing Concepts, and Dexterity Drills. He was a regular presence at annual conferences of the International Horn Society, and he became an honorary member in 2007.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family extends our best wishes to Leuba’s family and friends. Services have been held.
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January 23, 2022 at 7:53 PM
Sabina Pade
I’m not sure Chris was ever actually a member of the Philharmonia Hungarica ; he didn’t indicate as much to me, although at the time, he couldn’t have guessed that I, myself soon would be. Doráti, who knew Chris from Minneapolis, had brought him in to help out when they were recording the Haydn symphonies. Chris had figured out how to play high notes, an ability that wasn’t common among hornists back then.
His tenure in Chicago was short. It was an ironic turn of events, too, as his former teacher, whom he succeeded at Orchestra Hall, had long previously advised him to quit. Fortunately Chris persevered. And surely it was the experience of overcoming a lack of natural talent that made him such a potent, and influential teacher.
In this, he stands very much as a peer alongside his immediate predecessor and his 1966-onward successor at Orchestra Hall, whose tenures were longer and whose names are far better known. Seattle, and the University of Washington, where he held a post as professor until he one day, in a jocular moment, left a title page from Johnny Paycheck’s You Can Take This Job and Shove It for the head of the Music Department to see, were a musical backwater. Chris fostered a generation of wonderful hornists, but the place where they studied wasn’t famous for music, so only insiders and the locals knew what a treasure he was.
Chris told me he left Chicago because he saw what was coming after Reiner. This struck me at the time as an odd reason for leaving a good job, although in hindsight, I think I might have done the same thing. A second Reiner+CSO, there would never be. And a relaxed work atmosphere, for Chris, there never was. Lead horn came hard to him – too hard, to justify the salary if the music-making wasn’t going to be amazing any more.
I’m profoundly grateful to have had his help and to have known his example as a man who, through thick and thin, and in the face of challenges often self-inflicted, never gave up.
Sabina Pade
formerly, Philharmonia Hungarica ; Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne ; Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra
January 18, 2022 at 1:19 PM
Remembering Richard Oldberg | from the archives
[…] and Northwestern universities, where he studied with two CSO principal horns, Philip Farkas and Christopher Leuba. A lip injury temporarily forced him to give up the horn, and he briefly turned to premedical […]
January 16, 2021 at 9:43 AM
sara p winckler keene
Im only an amateur horn player, but was in the professional world thru my husband John Keene, horn player with the Colorado Symphony for 24 years. I had the honor of playing in a horn quartet Mr. Leuba coached in Minneapolis when I was in high school. I was also raised with his treatise on intonation thru my teacher in Minneapolis, Paul Binstock. I own an LP of Mr. Leuba and my teacher playing the Beethoven Sextet and Mozart 12 Horn Duos. I would love to see this wonderful recording reissued as a CD. Does anyone have any ideas? Sara Keene, Denver, Colorado
August 23, 2020 at 4:04 PM
Judith Nelson
Chris Leuba was on the faculty at the Univ of Wash when I studied there from 1972-76. I met him when I heard a Bartok string quartet echoing through the campus air at midnight one Saturday. I followed the sound to his office in the art building, across the way from music, and spent a couple of hours discussing string quartets, Bartok, intonation and who knows how many other topics. He was an amazing musician and a very strong personality. Over the next couple of years I did some informal coaching with him, trying decipher the mysteries and contradictions of the Western harmonic system, and mining his ideas on phrasing.
Performing the Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with him stays in my memory as a high point of my undergraduate life. I’m sorry to hear he has passed away, but glad to have had the chance to learn from such a remarkable musician.
February 17, 2020 at 7:06 PM
Craig Kowald
Had the honor to perform the offstage horn part of the Alpine Symphony with both Chris Leuba and David Griffin about 10 years ago. It was a moment I shall always treasure.
February 4, 2022 at 9:02 PM
Blanche Meister (formerly Bounds)
I was so sorry to learn of Christopher Leuba’s death. He was my teacher during his time in Minnesota. I traveled from my Wisconsin University to his home in St. Paul each week for lessons. During that time, I was able to attend some of his professional chamber music and orchestral performances. He did have a very strong and interesting personality and his interest in teaching was very intense. Lessons scheduled for an hour nearly always exceeded 2 1/2 or 3 hours. He even surprised me by attending one of my own chamber music recitals concerts in Wisconsin where he literally took over the recital room following that, as our quintet’s pianist had misplayed a chord under one of the solo passages for horn. During that period, he explained his treatise on intonation. Certainly a highlight of that experience for me was playing through many of the Mozart Horn Duos that he had previously recorded. He shared many anecdotes of his time with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of incidents in Carl Geyer’s shop, and of his time playing in European orchestras. His place was filled with posters announcing his solo performances throughout Europe.