My mother was a piano teacher, and I have two brothers – one played violin, the other cello – so, when I was five or six, I was given the viola and really liked it.

After two years, someone gave me one of these small hunting horns. We lived outside [the German city] Essen in a house by a small creek and some woods, so I would run around and have fun with it.

Stefan Dohr. Photo © Simon Pauly

Then, two years later, I attended a church concert of the famous horn soloist Hermann Baumann, who lived in the same part of Essen where I grew up. Every year, he would play a concerto with horn and organ, and when I heard the horn, I immediately thought it was amazing and sounded better than my viola.

My mother took me to the music school in Kettwig, and I played both instruments until I was 15. Their range is more or less the same. The horn is a bit higher than the cello, but not as high as trumpet, whereas the viola is a bit darker than the violin....