I came to this immediately after a trumpet and organ
disc (Pavane ADW
7281) by the "Duo All’Armi", Alain Roelant and
Jan Van Landeghem, which I enjoyed while protesting mildly that the
source of the arrangements was not clearly declared. No complaints about
that here.
Those who fancy a trumpet and organ disc but are not
such specialist listeners as to get every one that comes out might be
wondering which of the two to buy. Well, the principal difference is
that Sauter plays on the trombino or piccolo trumpet, a high-pitched
natural instrument which, in the days before the valve-trumpet, allowed
players to ascend to the stratosphere using all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale. Having occasionally accompanied players on this instrument
I can vouchsafe that it is almighty hard to get properly in tune and
under decent tonal control, and that the mellifluous virtuosity with
which Sauter throws off strings of semi-quavers originally intended
for far nimbler instruments is quite staggering, as is the evenness
of his tone in the slow movements.
This, then, is the second difference between the two
discs, that Sauter goes all out for a virtuoso programme. Another is
that the "Duo All’Armi" interpolates works for solo organ,
and this, I feel, makes for a more interesting programme for the general
listener. Like any very high instrument, such as the piccolo or the
descant recorder, the trombino, however brilliantly played, can
get wearing in large doses, and although this disc is some 25’ shorter
than it could have been, I nevertheless had to take the works two at
a time with a strong espresso coffee in between. I kept wishing
after a while that Sauter would reach for the "normal" trumpet
or stand down and let the organist play something. In fact, the organ
ranks so low in the CD planners’ priorities that we are told nothing
about it except (in the notes) that it is a "wonderful Trost organ"
and (on the cover) that it has a very pretty case, assuming the organ
photographed is the one played (we aren’t even told that).
It certainly has a gorgeous flute stop. When I first heard it (in the
Telemann first movement) I thought a real alto recorder had been brought
in to duet with the trumpet. Less happy is Timm’s idea of outdoing the
soloist’s stratospheric heights by using the two-foot flute stop on
its own in the Scarlatti first movement, or the weird effect, in the
Sarabande of the same piece, of using a weak eight-foot stop as a sort
of ghostly doppelganger to a far stronger two-foot stop. I also
objected to the organists brutally short chords in the Vivaldi second
movement. The composer might have asked for staccato, but with a string
orchestra it is a very different matter and here it sounds most unmusical,
especially since the church used seems to have little or no reverberation
to cover it over. The third movements of the Handel and Corelli works
also emerge rather chunkily on account of the organist’s apparent rejection
of a legato touch.
The final difference, then, is that Roelant and Landeghem
present themselves as a duo and sound like one, whereas Sauter and Timm
seem a prima donna soloist with a discreet accompaniment. Probably the
Valentine is the piece I enjoyed most, maybe because the minor key and
the relative lack of stunning virtuosity brought a degree of contrast
to the proceedings. Sauter is a fiendishly clever chap, no doubt about
it, and his colleagues will go green with envy at what he can do, but
it’s the "Duo All’Armi" that I’d stir my stumps to go and
hear if I saw them billed to play in my home town.
Christopher Howell
Otto Sauter (piccolo trumpet),
David Timm (organ). Transcriptions by Claude Rippas.