Most musicians regard their chosen instrument as the most difficult to play. This conceit appeals to the artistic temperament, and to the belief that mastery of their musical foil -- whether made of brass, wood, skin or strings -- requires a rare skill. Of course, they also are loath to have a dissatisfied audience agree with them.

That's the backdrop for "A Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument." Englishman Jasper Rees rediscovers his French horn, 22 years after he last blew through its 16 feet of narrow tubing. His is a classic midlife sports car crisis, minus the sports car. With his 40th birthday and a divorce at hand, Rees returned to his horn as to an old flame, wondering "what might have been if after all they'd carried on."

Using his connections and his chutzpah as a freelance journalist to gain access, he seeks counsel from an array of professional French horn players in the United States and Europe. Some dismiss him as a dilettante, while others regard him as a curiosity, especially after he announces his intention to, within a year's time, perform Mozart's Third Horn Concerto at the British Horn Society's annual festival.

The ensuing year unfolds in a self-deprecating tone that occasionally is laid on a bit thick, only to be forgiven in the face of Rees' head-over-heels affection for this instrument whose sound "could have tested the walls of Jericho." Of interest to Minnesota readers may be his week at a horn camp in New Hampshire run by Kendall Betts, principal horn of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 to 2004 and whom Rees describes as "the only horn player I come across who somehow seems to have missed out on a career in standup."

That Rees ultimately will perform at the festival is never in doubt. Yet far from diminishing the tension, this knowledge allows him to delve into the French horn's history without creating any false sense of drama. One memorable conversation with a fellow horn player went to the role of music in addressing all of the "unresolved dissonance" in the world, claiming that a horn player in particular has a sort of civic responsibility.

For a moment, his friend said, audience members have "been able to forget about the bombs and the diseases and the social unfairness and they were presented with something which was fair and just and balanced and resolved conflict. I've been trying to impress people that horn players regardless of level or achievement are enrolled in a kind of army."

In the end, it turns out that the French horn really is the devil to play; the Guinness Book of World Records even called it the most difficult instrument.

The challenge, then, subtly shifts from not only being able to play it, but to playing it well -- and here's where Rees' journey finds its common bond with his readers' sundry pursuits: It's one thing to give something a try, and another to set your sights on mastery. "From now on," he wrote, "when I go to the mirror in the small dark hours, I will be spared the accusing glare of an unfulfilled man."

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185