IMPERIAL FANFARES
Fanfares from the 17th-19th Centuries :
Imperial Fanfares
Antonio SALIERI
(1750-1825)
Imperial Fanfare
ANONYMOUS (VIENNA)
Royal Entry
ANONYMOUS (SALZBURG)
Ceremonial Procession
Bartolomaüs
RIEDL (?-1688)
Heroic Procession
Processional and Occasional Music at
the Imperial Court
ANONYMOUS (SALZBURG)
Festive Procession, Elector’s Procession,
Galant Procession, Majestic Procession
Fanfares for Court Church Ceremonies
Johann Ernst ALTENBERG
(1734-1801)
Prière du Matin
Moritz, Landgraf
von HESSEN (1572-1632)
Intrada
SALIERI
Largo – Allegretto
Johann PEZEL (1639-1694)
Intrada
Arias for Equestrian Ballet
Johann Heinrich
SCHMELZER (c.1628-1680)
Courante for the Entry of His Imperial
Majesty and All the Cavalry, Follia
for New Entry of the Sprinter and Other
Equestrian Manoeuvres, Sarabande for
the End of the Ballet
Table Fanfares for chamber or concert
trumpeters
Heinrich Ignaz
Franz von BIBER (1644-1704)
Trumpet Duet, Intrada for the Trombet
undt musicalischen Tafeldienst
ANONYMOUS (SALZBURG, 1750/70)
Menuet (Trumpet Duet no.82)
BIBER
Trumpet Duet no.8, Trumpet Duet no.3
ANONYMOUS (VIENNA)
Festive Table Music No.1, Festive Table
Music No.2
Official Fanfares
ANONYMOUS (VIENNA)
Procession at the Imperial Court
Michael GOTTMANN
(court trumpeter c.1714)
Procession No.3
David CRAMER
Festive Procession: The Entry of the
Emperor, 1631
ANONYMOUS
Intrada from Bruck an der Mur
Loud Signal and Alarm Fanfares
Giovanni Battista
GORDIGIANI (1795-1871)
Procession No.4
PATER IGNATIUS
Procession No.1, Procession (brilliant,
light)
Ceremonial and Gala Fanfares at the
French Court
Jean-Baptiste
LULLY (1632-1687)
Marche des Nations de Flore, 2e
Air du combat de lance d’Amadis, La
descente de Mars, La Marche Italienne
André Danican
PHILIDOR (l’AISNE) (c.1647-1730)
Prélude des Divertissements,
Chaconne du Palais Royal, Menuet Royal,
Marche pour les Trompettes Seules
Marc-Antoine CHARPENTIER
(1634-1704)
Bruit de trompettes
ANONYMOUS
L’Etandard
CHARPENTIER
Fanfare à deux trompettes
PHILIDOR (l’AISNE)
Bruit de Guerre
Procession of the Electoral Court Trumpeters
ANONYMOUS (DRESDEN)
Allemande, Molto moderato
Milos BETKO
Signature Tune of the Old Town of Bratislava,
1996
Trumpet Fanfares from Prague
Jiří
Ignác LINEK (1725-1792)
Fanfára 1, Fanfára 2
Johann Dismas
ZELENKA (1679-1745)
Marcia per la Cavalleria No.1
Contemporary Fanfares
Event Fanfares I
Joel MODART (b.1960)
Entrée Fanfare, Modern Fanfare,
Segnature Fanfare, Convention
Fanfares for Solo Trumpet
Leonhard J. LEEB
(b.1962)
Fanfare Solos I-VI
Event Fanfares II
Leon BOLTEN (b.1962)
Opening Fanfare, New Palace Fanfare,
Welcome Fanfare, Excitement
Short Fanfares
Leonhard J. LEEB
Short and concise, Short Fanfares 1-4,
Flourish
Modern Fanfares
Joel MODART
Il Giorno del silenzio
Leonhard J. LEEB
Fanfares for Solo Trumpet and Drum –
V, II
Leon BOLTEN
Wrapped in Mystery
Fanfares from 17th to 19th
Centuries
Imperial Fanfares
Giovani Battista GORDIGIANI
Marcia maestoso (1836)
ANONYMOUS/Leonhard J. LEEB
Imperial Procession in Vienna
Antonio SALIERI
Procession No.8: Allegretto
There’s nothing better
than a bright fanfare to start the day
with but there is also such a thing
as the law of diminishing returns. In
the same way as, just because one apple
a day keeps one doctor away it doesn’t
necessarily follow that you can keep
76 of them from baying at your door
by stuffing 76 apples down your throat
in 24 hours, a day which begins with
76 fanfares, imperial or not, will not
necessarily be 76 times brighter. There
used to be a jolly song about "76
trombones all in a row" but I forget
what happened to them.
Well, having got the
wisecracks off my chest it would be
nice to say that in the event it was
all much more varied than I feared,
and up to a point it was. Within the
limits of the genre there is a fair
contrast between lively ones and solemn
ones, and by stretching the genre such
pieces as Altenburg’s touching "Prière
du Matin" and the well-known Monteverdi
piece have got in. Other high points
along the way are Pezel’s perky "Intrada"
which seems to have the "Trumpet
Voluntary" on its brain, except
that it must be pure coincidence, and
Biber’s "Intrada" in which
a solo trumpet gives out typical fanfare
motives while the others hold a single
chord for 2’ 14". Did circular
breathing already exist in those days
or is staggered breathing cunningly
used to give the illusion of a single,
sustained chord? Either way, I felt
my own breath running out as I listened.
The better-known names
do not always stand out above the crowd;
of the French group Lully does not sound
anything special, Charpentier perhaps
does. Many of the modern fanfares last
a bare 11 seconds and one’s reaction
is inclined to be "and so what?"
On the other hand, when Modart ("Il
Giorno del silenzio") and Bolten
("Wrapped in Mystery", an
instant reaction to the terrorist attack
of 11th September) are allowed
to spread themselves a little (respectively
1’ 55" and 2’ 59", the longest
piece on the disc), they do not appear
to have a lot to say.
I also wonder why there
is a chronological gap between the mid-19th
Century Gordigiani and the contemporary
pieces. Just to remain with my own particular
obsession, it might have been interesting
to have heard Stanford’s "Flourish
of Trumpets for the Imperial Durbar
of Delhi" (you can’t get much more
imperial than that!) but there must
be plenty of other material from the
late 19th Century and the
20th.
In short, if you have
to compile a disc of 76 fanfares, given
the reservation above, this is the way
to do it. But why should you have to?
One reason might be, if you are trying
to sell the music, and in fact we are
given an address from which sheet music
of the anonymous works and those of
Bolten, Leeb and Modart can be obtained.
So perhaps the original idea was simply
to provide an illustrated catalogue.
But even so, I’m not convinced that
band leaders will flock to buy. Do Leeb’s
solo fanfares, for instance, contain
anything that any competent trumpeter
could not improvise for the occasion
rather than have scores sent from Vienna?
And might not the ensemble fanfares
similarly stimulate emulation rather
than purchase?
It remains to be said
that the ensemble is a fine one, well-recorded,
and might profitably give us some more
sustained works. In truth, all this
fanfare material would have been better
used to fill odd spaces in such discs.
It’s difficult to see
who to recommend this to, but if you
want 76 fanfares you know where to get
them.
Christopher Howell
Jonathan Woolf
has also listened to this disc
Hell’s Bells how am
I going to review this one? 76 Imperial
Fanfares, 76 Trombones, Four and Twenty
Blackbirds – where does one start. How,
in actual fact, does one start? Well
then, the disc is divided into types
– Processional, Occasional, Ceremonial,
Table – and we’re already sounding suspiciously
like Hamlet’s advice to the Player King;
there’s Ceremonial-Gala, there’s Processional-Electoral,
there’s Equestrian-Aria. The sub divisions
are seemingly – but thankfully not –
endless.
Take a look at the
composers; then reflect on the fact
that most of these pieces last between
thirty seconds and one minute thirty-five.
When we get to the oddly tacked on Contemporary
Fanfares from Joel Modart (b. 1962),
Leonhard Leeb (b.1962 – and the director
of the band) and Leon Bolten (b.1962
– what was it about 1962?) and you find
that some of them last just eleven seconds.
I don’t know what you can get up to
in eleven seconds but I can tell you
that a Contemporary Fanfare doesn’t
cover a great deal of Monteverdian ground
in that time.
All right, what have
we got here? Salieri was clearly a master
of this most external of musical arts
– his Imperial Fanfare is striking but
there’s a most diverting and anonymous
Procession from Salzburg (the aptly
titled Majestic Procession) that really
does live up to its name and makes one
inquisitive as to its composer. I enjoyed
the antiphonal effects of Altenburg’s
Morning Prayer, the crispness of Pezels’
brief Intrada (brief is I suppose in
this context oxymoronic) and the amplitude
of the Cavalli. The Monteverdi is the
Prelude to Orfeo. As usual Biber turns
in one of the more extraordinary compositions;
if you thought he confined technical
challenges to the violin think again
when you hear his amazing Intrada for
Trombet undt musicalischen Tafeldienst.
The solo trumpet plays over a massed
sustained note from the band - a
remarkable feat. Lully’s The
Descent of Mars starts rather innocuously
but then becomes decidedly and determinedly
– almost daemonically – Olympian and
there’s some wrong note wit from Philidor.
As for the contemporary works, well
I’m not quite sure what they’re doing
here, unless it’s to demonstrate a continuum
of some sort. There’s a touch of the
Coplands about Modart’s Entrée
Fanfare and Bolten’s New Palace Fanfare
(37 seconds long) is grand and knowingly
old fashioned. The only piece to get
one’s musical teeth into is his Wrapped
in Mystery, a three-minute
work strong on pensive intensity and
inspired by the World Trade Centre attack
– but it seems in this line-up to have
wandered in by mistake from some album
of brass tone poems. We end with three
older Fanfares – to round things off
I suppose. In our end is our beginning;
it’s back to confident Salieri to transport
us to Vienna.
Who is this disc for?
Who will listen to it? How did I manage
to write this much? I have no answers
to any of these questions – but I am
off to listen to Bruckner 7.
Jonathan Woolf
Who is this disc for?
Who will listen to it? How did I manage
to write this much? I have no answers
to any of these questions – but I am
off to listen to Bruckner 7. ... see
Full Review
The Art of Trumpet, Vienna/Leonhard Leeb 