The horn was one of the instruments that Johannes Brahms learned in his youth, from his father who played it professionally. His fondness and familiarity with the instrument is clear from the glorious solos that he provided it with in his symphonies, and he gave it pride of place in the Horn Trio that he wrote in memory of his mother Christiane. Even so, he never composed any other chamber work involving the horn – an oversight that horn players have regretted ever since. Following up on two highly acclaimed BIS albums, Alec Frank-Gemmill decided to rectify this, and enlisted the help of pianist Daniel Grimwood and violinist Benjamin Marquise Gilmore. It goes without saying that the resulting disc includes the Horn Trio – which Frank-Gemmill has chosen to perform on the instrument played by Aubrey Brain on his legendary 1933 recording of the work. But leading up to this are two works originally written for violin and cello respectively. The sometimes controversial subject of transcriptions is discussed by Frank-Gemmill in his liner notes where he also explains his selection of works. In the Scherzo that Brahms wrote as his contribution to the F-A-E Sonata (which also included movements by Schumann and Albert Dietrich), he finds that the very fabric of the piece is made up of horn calls, while the galloping 6/8 theme reminds him of the final movement of the horn trio. Wanting to also include a sonata, Frank-Gemmill settled on the E minor Cello Sonata, Op. 38 as the one best suited for the horn, and together with arranger Daniel Grimwood the decision was made to transpose the work a third up, into G minor. Through their efforts, we are able to present a Brahms recital that hornists – and the rest of us – could only dream of.

On her debut album with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Roberto Paternostro, Selina Ott presents an exciting selection from the opulent range of 20th century trumpet concertos that have been written in close temporal proximity to one another.

John Rutter, Britain’s most successful contemporary choral composer, has written most of his sacred music to commission, and for use in church services. Composed for his first American tour, Gloria was also his first great international success, combining an ethereal quality with moments of exhilaration. Two other popular works are also represented: Pie Jesu from the Requiem, and This is the Day, composed for the wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011. John Rutter’s music is eclectic and shows influences of the French and English choral traditions of the early 20th century as well as influences from light music and American classic songwriting. Almost every choral anthem and hymn has an orchestral accompaniment in a more colourful form in addition to the standard organ or piano accompaniment. This new release coincides with the composer’s 75th birthday in24 September 2020 – a perfect moment to celebrate one of Britain’s most successful and internationally well-known composers of choral music.

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REVIEWS:

Rutter’s particular brand of polyphony, bright and optimistic yet surprisingly dense, offers many possibilities, and it is likely that even listeners not particularly enamored of Rutter will appreciate the artistry here. The lion’s share of that artistry comes from the Black Dyke Band, the preeminent member of the shrinking group of British brass bands. There are plenty of popular Rutter pieces here, including This Is the Day, composed for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011. The Black Dyke Band ends with a collaboration on Rutter’s first big hit, the Gloria (1974), deploying the ideal Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Two musical pillars of Christmas in the UK are John Rutter and Salvation Army silver bands. While, with one exception, there are neither John Rutter carols here nor a Salvation Army silver band, we do have a disc devoted to the music of Rutter most of which is performed by one of Britain’s most famous (and finest) bands in arrangements by Luc Vertommen. And, as such, it seems to ooze Christmas, even there is only one item—What Sweeter Music—which has a direct Christmas connection.

The Black Dyke Band under their conductor, Nicholas Childs, plays everything with supreme polish and sensitivity, and exudes a silky smooth warmth and affection. Of particular beauty is their take on The Lord Bless You and Keep You, which has such a velvety softness that it seems almost to breathe with a human voice. Also exuding a truly almost vocal style of delivery is the delightfully creamy cornet of Richard Marshall, in the Pie Jesu. I am not so sure otherwise about this arrangement, with a tinkling glockenspiel adding a slight whiff of the fairground. Indeed, on the whole, Luc Vertommen’s arrangements have a slightly over-orchestrated feel, with his version of All Things Bright and Beautiful really far too fussy and action-packed to match the simple beauty of Rutter’s original. I suspect that without a band of such superlative control to play them, these arrangements would not work anything like as effectively as they do. However, they do work magnificently in this context, and while they hardly stretch the band and have, inevitably, a certain samey quality, the luxury of the playing ensures that the novelty of Rutter on brass never wears too thin. The one exception is Distant Land (A Prayer for Freedom) which takes on a decidedly Copland-esque feel in this instrumental-only arrangement.

Scored for choir, organ, brass and percussion, the Gloria of 1974 is so strongly redolent of Walton that it is sometimes difficult to spot anything distinctive in the music, especially given this performance in which Darius Battiwala is so keen to convey the mood of celebration and festivity that the moments of repose are largely swept away by the sheer exuberance of the music-making. One senses that the church in which this recording was made was possibly a little too small to accommodate such musical enthusiasm, and certainly the men of the Sheffield Philharmonic Choir seem to have pretty much tired themselves out by the time we reach the final Amen. But what the choral singing lacks in polish, is more than amply compensated for by the sheer joie-de-vivre of the performance and the sparkling majesty of the Black Dyke Band.

– MusicWeb International

A longtime member of two of the world’s most renowned orchestras – The New York Philharmonic and The Philadelphia Orchestra, hornist Howard Wall also performs and records with the All-Star Orchestra, and is an avid chamber music proponent. Among the 22 tracks in his solo album “Music for One Horn”, 16 are world-premiere recordings. This is a kaleidoscopic collection of eclectic styles and genres ranging from Charles Koechlin’s refined impressionism and Elliott Carter’s sophisticated modernism, to Phillip Ramey’s Bartokian reflections, Astor Piazzolla’s melancholic tango mood, Elizabeth Raum’s idiomatic virtuosity, Pascal Proust’s exalted dance rhythms, the poetic inspirations of Georges Barboteu, the otherworldly mysticism of Alice Gomez, the profound emotion of Lev Kogan’s Kaddish prayer, the stunning beauty and unique rhythms of Bulgarian folk music and Venezuelan joropo.

Classical Music

With Handel‘s Music to the Royal Fireworks, adapted for four trumpets, timpani and organ, the first recording of an unusually successful series started that has grown in the meantime to seven productions: festive trumpet sound with the Pfeiffer trumpet consort. Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort (The Pfeiffer Trumpet Consort = PTC) was founded by the brothers Joachim, Martin, and Harald Pfeiffer in 1985. They were soon joined by Dale Marrs, who has decisively put his stamp on the musical style of the group. Mathias Muller, tympanist, joined in 1992. Through Peter Schumann, organist, the group's musical home has always been the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) in Heidelberg, Germany. Most of the works performed by the Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort, famous, as well as less-well-known pieces, are presented in new, festive arrangements, most of which (with the exception of a few original compositions) have been revised and adapted by members of the ensemble. These arrangements are unique in their style. It is always easy to recognize the concern for combining Baroque trumpet artistry with modern playing techniques. In addition to the original trumpet parts, the Pfeiffer-Trompeten-Consort tries to include as many of the other instrumental parts as possible, and thus to consider the musical compositions in their entirety. The possibilities of modem trumpets combined with the splendid sound of the instruments transform familiar compositions into a new listening experience.

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Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Trumpet Concerto op. 94 was composed in his most productive creative phase and premiered in Moscow on 6 January 1968. Shostakovich once described it as a "symphony for trumpet and orchestra" - no wonder, since it showcases the whole variety of Weinberg's compositions: from the bitingly humorous first and sumptuously colorfully orchestrated second movement to the wonderfully collage-like finale, fabulously interpreted by Hakan Hardenberger to celebrate the composer’s 100th anniversary. After the Sixth and Fifth Symphonies, Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig add Tchaikovsky’s Fourth to their cycle featuring the symphonic works of this outstanding composer.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Trumpet Concerto op. 94 was composed in his most productive creative phase and premiered in Moscow on 6 January 1968. Shostakovich once described it as a "symphony for trumpet and orchestra" - no wonder, since it showcases the whole variety of Weinberg's compositions: from the bitingly humorous first and sumptuously colorfully orchestrated second movement to the wonderfully collage-like finale, fabulously interpreted by Hakan Hardenberger to celebrate the composer's 100th anniversary. After the Sixth and Fifth Symphonies, Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig add Tchaikovsky's Fourth to their cycle featuring the symphonic works of this outstanding composer.

Along with the renowned classics of the trumpet concerto literature by Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the musical epoch known today as “Classicism” also witnessed the composition of other solo concertos for trumpet. These concertos were written not for valved instruments but for the natural trumpet without valves – an instrument on which the player in principle can produce only the tones of the natural harmonic series. Performing on a four-hole Baroque trumpet model and with the richly nuanced L’arpa festante ensemble, the Hungarian trumpeter Krisztián Kováts interprets festive trumpet concertos by Johann Matthias Sperger, Johann Stamitz, and others in which the timpani expressively reinforce the tutti sound of the orchestra. The purpose of the present recording is to call attention to the long-forgotten art of clarino playing. The use of original instruments enabling us to come very close to the composer’s musical intention is a very substantial prerequisite here. The corpus of the Baroque natural trumpet is much longer than that of modern valved instruments, so that a sound spectrum rich in overtones is the result. The repertoire recorded here was once performed by only a few most highly privileged and specialized trumpeters whose artistry enabled them to imitate the articulation and lightness of the human voice in the clarino register.

On this new album the Duo Hervé Joulain (Horn) and Ariane Jacob (Piano) present 17 very interesting Original Horn Themes — with works by Sinigaglia, Glière, Strauss, Büsser, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Chabrier, Skrjabin, Freiherr von Krufft, Glasunow, Cherubini, d’Indy, Damase, Bernstein and Couson. Hervé Joulain (Horn) has appeared as soloist with 120 orchestras, performing Telemann, Mozart, Haydn, Schumann, Weber, Saint-Saëns, Strauss, and Britten, in France, Canada, the United States, Russia, Romania, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Georgia, Germany, Ukraine, and Spain. Ariane Jacob (Piano) has been performing in large French and internationals concert halls for more than twenty years. She plays with such musicians as Philippe Bernold, Hervé Joulain, Barbara Hendricks, Laurent Korcia or the actor Didier Sandre.

George Frederic Handel's music has thrilled a wide audience for over 300 years. Today it is more popular than ever and you can find it almost everywhere: on opera stages, in churches and concerts, even on the TV broadcasts of the Football Champions League. Handel was celebrated throughout Europe during his lifetime, in Hamburg as well as in Italy - they called him "dear Saxony" (il caro Sassone) - and of course in England, his main place of work. For the Pfeiffer Trumpet Consort, which has dealt with Handel's work since it's foundation, it was only natural to design his fifth album on Cantate in the year of his 250th death exclusively with works by Baroque's most important composer besides Bach. In numerous works, the trumpets set the triumphal highlights, reason enough for the ensemble to make their own arrangements in the greatest possible variety. In addition to the main work - the "Fireworks Music" - a small insight into Handel's extensive oeuvre should be granted, for example with excerpts from the oratorio "Saul", the world-famous aria "Lascia ch'�o pianga" to the "Collection of Original Marches", a probably unique compilation of small cabinet pieces from Handel's operas, oratorios and instrumental music. - The Pfeiffer Trumpet Consort was founded by the brothers Joachim, Harald and Martin Pfeiffer together with the organist Peter Schumann at the Heiliggeistkirche in Heidelberg, initially with four trumpets. Mathias M�ller, the timpanist, soon joined. When it comes to it's own arrangements, the Pfeiffer Trumpet Consort is particularly keen to combine the possibilities of today's instruments and baroque playing practice. The ensemble continues to appeal to a wide audience of audiences with great enthusiasm.

Kerry Turner made his mark on the global music community through his association with the illustrious American Horn Quartet. Turner’s compositional goal is to communicate to the listener a vivid picture through his highly melodic musical language. Many sources provided the inspiration for the works on this album, ranging from the spiritual, to the literary, and even Turner’s powerful response to the music of J.S. Bach.

This album features three superb contemporary trios for horn, violin, and piano. The Advenio Trio, consisting of Bruce Atwell, horn, Yuliya Smead, violin, and Eli Kalman, piano, is one of the finest horn, violin and piano trios performing today. Bruce Atwell is currently Professor of Horn at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. He is Principal Horn with the Fox Valley Symphony and a member of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra. Prior to his work in Wisconsin, Dr. Atwell held positions with the Florida Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Dr. Atwell has also performed with the Milwaukee Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and as acting Fourth Horn with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His recording Baroque Music for Horn and Strings with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic is also available on the Centaur Label.

This outstanding program contains all of Edward Gregson’s significant works for Symphonic Brass, including the seminal Brass Quintet, the Symphony in two movements and Music of the Angels. (Chandos)

Contemporary American Composer David Loeb: "The choice of the trombone of pieces might engender some surprise, but the trombone has the necessary diversity of resources." These great works will make this point abundantly obvious. David Loeb was born in 1939 in New York into a family which took music and painting very seriously. He studied composition with Peter Pindar Stearns at the Mannes College of Music in New York, and then completed a master's degree at Yale. His catalog of compositions is unusually extensive and diverse. In addition to the expected assortment of works for orchestra, various chamber combinations, soloists, and voice, he has also written many pieces for Asian instruments (in addition to Japanese, some for Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Mongol) and for early Western instruments (in addition to viols, some for lute, harpsichord, and recorder). He has often brought these instruments together in unique combinations, such as four shakuhachi and four viols; flute, guitar, koto, and shakuhachi; and khaen, flute, guitar, cello, and percussion.