Ripples
Anthony PLOG (b.1947)
For Cam [5:10]
Samuel ADLER (b.1928)
Life is an Ecstasy [8:44]
Stacy GARROP (b.1969)
Road Warrior [12:50]
James MOBBERLEY (b.1954)
Passing Illuminations [13:11]
Adam SCHOENBERG (b.1980)
Apollo
Clarion
No recording data available
CRYSTAL RECORDS CD961 [64:10]
The trumpet/organ combination featured prominently in the North German Baroque and has seen a considerable revival over the past 50 years hand-in-hand with the Baroque revival in organ design and the general interest in the music of that period. While the repertory for the organ duo largely consists of arrangements with a few original works by the likes of Krebs, here is a disc wholly devoted to new and original music for the duo by living American composers. What is more, the music here seems a world away from the usual kind of writing for such an ensemble.
Clarion, the name given to the trumpet and organ duo founded in 1988 by Keith Benjamin and Melody Turnquist-Steed, has made something of a speciality out of finding new works for this combination of instruments, and all five of these relatively substantial pieces were written specifically at the request of Clarion. All five offer something new, original and distinctive. That said, one wonders whether John Williams might not have a case for taking Stacy Garrop to task for so blatantly borrowing his iconic Jaws theme in the first movement of her three-movement Road Warrior. The remaining two movements have a similarly movie-soundtrack quality, depicting scenes taken from the book Ghost Rider by Neil Peart, and this visual imagery is highly effectively managed by Clarion, who reveal here not just an extraordinarily high level of technical ability but a keen sense of the dramatic gesture.
Most accomplished here is Anthony Plog’s For Cam which not only shows, as we might expect from a man who is also a professional trumpeter, an utterly idiomatic approach to the trumpet, but also a surprisingly instinctive feel for the organ. Adler’s curiously titled Life is an Ecstasy gets probably closer to the Baroque both in its organ writing as well as the strong sense of dialogue between the two instruments, but is very much music in the style of the composer and of his time.
James Mobberley writes in the highly informative booklet, that his Passing Illuminations was inspired by the “exceptional musicality and artistry” of these two players, and the most immediate thing to note in his work is the way in which the two instruments take on entirely different qualities – the organ creating a sensuously exotic character against the muffled and discreet tones of the trumpet. The piece also looks to the religious connotations of the traditional trumpet/organ repertory, but responds to it with atmospheric writing which is rather more spiritual than overtly religious.
There is also something spiritual and other-worldly about Adam Schoenberg’s three-movement Apollo which again explores the more remote and atmospheric qualities of the ensemble in a musical space journey intended, to quote the composer, “to create a celestial, out-of-body experience for the listeners”.
It is interesting that none of these composers has tried to build on the traditional style of writing for organ and trumpet with its ecclesiastical and majestic associations, and instead have found a breadth of expressiveness with which neither instrument is customarily associated. Clearly the unique qualities of both Benjamin and Turnquist-Steed have inspired some very original writing, and they respond with performances which are nothing if not totally committed to the music. The recording balances organ and trumpet well, even if clearly some of these works could not really be brought off so effectively in a live context where the powerful organ tone would easily overwhelm the trumpet.
Marc Rochester
