Alison Balsom: Shines with Haydn & Hummel Trumpet Concertos
Alison Balsom is celebrating the release of her fourth album on EMI with a disc filled with nothing but the absolute highlights of the Trumpet repertoire: Both the Haydn and the Hummel Concerto have established themselves as the pieces every artist wants to play and every audience loves to hear. Even though these pieces have been recorded several times before, it will be interesting to see how Balsom, who has been credited as one of the scene's most versatile and voluble interpreters, will tackle the task of making them sound every inch as spontaneous and fresh as when they were first performed. Excerpts available from a specially created microsite show that her approach was marked by concentrating on the splendour and shining regality of the works on the one hand and on juxtaposing them with slightly less well-known pieces from the same time on the other. „Haydn & Hummel Trumpet Concertos“ will therefore also include music by Giuseppe Torelli (likely performed on feast days in the San Petronio Basilica, as the liner notes to the album point out) as well as the „charming, traditional“ Concerto for Hunting Horn and Strings by Czech composer Johann Baptist Neruda.
Two other points of interest should turn „Haydn & Hummel Trumpet Concertos“ into a must for every fan of the Trumpet repertoire. On the one hand, the album sees Alison Balsom conduct for the first time on a studio recording, directing the „Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen“ with a secure hand. And on the other, it contrasts compositions for the Baroque-era „natural“ Trumpet with those of later tracks designed for Anton Weidinger's „keyed“ Trumpet. Even though the latter would disappear from the mainstream in the 1840s to be replaced by the valve Trumpet, it represented a remarkable improvement at the time of its arrival, as it finally allowed playing organic chromatic scales.
As could be expected, Alison Balsom will back up the Haydn and Hummel Trumpet Concerto album with a long tour, which will take her from the USA to German, Switzerland and even to Brazil.
Picture by Mat Hennek
Homepage: Alison Balsom
Homepage: Alison Balsom – Haydn & Hummel Trumpet Concertos Microsite
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