For the last ten years, usually around this time of year, the French consulate general in Karachi in a continuous display of magnanimity has been holding a concert in aid of the Al-Mehrab Tibbi Imdad charity. This is a hospice for terminally ill people — cancer patients from the under privileged segments of society.

This year, instead of Mozart and the fashion designers, 10 French musicians wielding French hunting horns performed on Friday and Saturday at a local hotel to give local guests at Rs10,000 an invitation to a taste of what they referred to as “Forest Forays”. To add a touch of authenticity, the musicians were appropriately dressed in the costume of the hunting fraternity they represented

Just why the consulate general chose this particular musical fare instead of excerpts from the music of Debussy, Saint Saens, Delibes, Ravel and Massanet is hard to understand. Perhaps it is because the hunting season is just round the corner and visitors from the UAE armed with sharp beaked falcons will soon be decimating the wild life of Sindh. Or perhaps the consul general thought he would present something unusual and different, something that had never been presented before.

The French horn is a coiled brass wind instrument of conical ¼-inch bore with a funnel-shaped mouthpiece and bell. It is one of the earliest of the primitive instruments and was used for military purposes and hunting. The modern horn was, however, developed in France; and according to the records was introduced into the orchestra by Jean-Baptiste de Lully in Paris in 1664 in his comedy ballad La Princesse d'Elide. All parts in the composition were written as if in the key of C with sharps and flats inserted as accidentals.

With the exception of Schubert's Ave Maria, which isn't a hunting song by any stretch of imagination, and is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, the other compositions on the programme weren't quite as lyrical or romantic. In fact, the mood was rather menacing as if one was preparing to embark on an arduous journey full of tension, anticipation and danger.

What added an ominous note and which I found particularly distasteful was while the horns were deep in their metric modulations a video displayed on a wide screen on the lawn deer, wild boar, quail and other animals that were destined to soon end up on some squire's dinner table.

The musicians, nevertheless, were good at what they did. Some of the pieces were characterised by a contrapuntal dialogue between two horns over a driving ostinato on the piano which gradually gave way to a section of turbulence which then served as a transition to the relative calm of the following passage. One piece in particular had an easy flowing vitality, and there was a silvery brilliance to the music.