“English Horn” is an odd name for an instrument—for starters, it’s not English, and, it’s not a brass instrument, like the French horn.

The English horn is, in fact, a double reed instrument, a lower-voiced cousin of the oboe. The “English” part of its name is probably a corruption of “angle,” since it has a bend to its shape. Until late in the 20th century, its primary role was to add a darker tone color to the reed section of the orchestra, and performers who played the English horn had precious few solo concertos written to showcase their dusky-voiced instrument.

One performer, Thomas Stacy, decided to do something about that. He’s commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for his instrument. This is one of them —a concerto by the American composer Ned Rorem that Stacy premiered on today’s date in 1994 with the New York Philharmonic.

Ned Rorem is perhaps best-known as a composer of art songs, but has also composed successful orchestral and chamber works. “Why do I write music?” asks Rorem—“because I want to hear it. It’s as simple as that. My sole aim in writing the Concerto for English Horn was to exploit that instrument’s special luster and pliability… to make the sound gleam through a wash of brass and silver, catgut and steel.”