Alison Balsom (trumpet)
Quiet City
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Quiet City (1940)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
On the Town, Act I: Lonely Town. Pas de deux (1944)
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
The Unanswered Question (1908)
Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)
Concierto de Aranjuez (1939, arr. Gil Evans): Adagio & Moderato
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
My Ship from Lady in the Dark (1941, arr. Gil Evans)
Nicholas Daniel (oboe); Tom Poster (piano)
Britten Sinfonia/Scott Stroman
rec. 2021, London
WARNER CLASSICS 9029622991 [54]
This is a peculiar collection; peculiar in various senses. It has been honed by Alison Balsom as a vehicle for her very considerable artistry. There is no other anthology like this so far as its mix of component works is concerned. Also, the natural limelight prominence accorded to the trumpet makes for some surprises peculiar to this disc which, we are assured, is Balsom’s sixteenth release in two decades as a solo artist.
The Copland is a work that steps outside the composer’s most prominent pastoral style (Appalachian Spring, The Tender Land and Outdoor Overture). Instead, it lights on the loneliness of the city. It’s not merely the loneliness that equates to Edward Hopper’s Loneliness of the Nighthawks at the Diner (1942) but reaches towards the world mysteries, a heartbeat away from Ives’ Unanswered Question and Central Park in the Dark. The recorded balance seems to favour Ms Balsom’s superb playing, as is only to be expected. This alloys the magic. Everything feels recessed around the foregrounded trumpet. That said it’s devastatingly successfully done and the romantic temperature rises in a nicely calculated way. Balsom herself made the Bernstein arrangement from three Episodes for On the Town.
The Rhapsody in Blue is as arranged by Simon Wright who took as his ‘point of departure’ Gershwin’s two piano original. The trumpet steps into the limelight for the role usually taken by other instruments. That aspect hits you immediately at the beginning in the swooping rocket-ascent of the clarinet here reallocated to the trumpet. The skill with which Balsom conjures the seductive ululating upward banshee shriek of the trumpet is striking. This continues. Tom Poster’s piano gets a look-in, of course, and he also injects dynamism to contrast with the trumpet for which Wright very skilfully re-voices the dreamy seductive sections. This smacks very much of a snake-hips, jazzily louche concerto for trumpet … and piano. Familiar yet unfamiliar.
The Ives seems the most faithful to the original. Its trumpet calls reminded me of the hieratic statements in Franz Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony. The Schmidt was written in 1933. The Ives, dating from 1908, is the most ‘advanced’ piece here. It starts in a remarkable hush like the Tallis Fantasia but soon lays bare some very unTallis-like moments in exchange for pungency and disillusion.
Balsom refers to “the wonderful bridge and mutual respect between the classical composers and arrangers ….” This is on show in the Rodrigo concerto (what did Rodrigo make of this?) in the very free hand that Gil Evans used in ‘re-tooling’ the work for Miles Davis. For a start there is no guitar in what we hear. Instead, we get a rounded invocation of the famous melody. This soon develops into the freest and most unleashed re-composition. Castanets have an extended place in the Moderato which ends up sounding like a score for a film noir.
I would not have complained if Balsom had added one (or several) other short pieces for trumpet and orchestra. Since the ‘theme’ is Americana why not some Alan Hovhaness? Several of his pieces would have served Balsom and her listeners well - Symphony No.51 for trumpet and strings or other such works: Khrimian Hairig; Prayer of Saint Gregory and Haroutiun Resurrection.
The booklet notes are extensive and are in the form of an interview with Alison Balsom by John Fordham. They are in English, French and German.
I can’t help thinking that the main constituency for this disc will be the fans of Alison Balsom or those potential admirers ripe to join their ranks.
Rob Barnett
