Barry Tuckwell, considered by many to be the finest horn player of his generation, who displayed his skill in concerts all over the world and on dozens of recordings, died on Friday in Melbourne, Australia. He was 88.

The Maryland Symphony Orchestra, of which Mr. Tuckwell was founding music director and conductor, posted news of his death on its website. The Sydney Morning Herald of Australia said the cause was heart disease.

Mr. Tuckwell, Australian by birth, was a master of the French horn, one of the more difficult instruments in the orchestra to play well, especially as a soloist. People magazine, in a 1979 article about Mr. Tuckwell, called it “some 21 feet of coiled brass, valves, crooks, sockets, slides, keys — in short, booby traps.”

Mr. Tuckwell offered an analogy. “Playing the horn,” he told the magazine, “is like driving a very fast car on an oily road. You have to anticipate the things that may go wrong.”