Though
pleasant enough listening, this is isn’t by any means an essential
purchase. It isn’t just pedantry to complain that its contents
are not actually made up of trumpet concertos, despite the CD’s
title. Three of the items we hear are actually transcriptions
of oboe concertos. The booklet notes by Edward Tarr observe
that “the instrument now in universal use to perform high Baroque
trumpet parts is the piccolo trumpet in B flat/A. Its tube length
of approximately 65 cm is comparable to that of an oboe. On
such an instrument it is thus possible to perform not only works
originally conceived for the Baroque trumpet, but also transcriptions
of oboe concertos”. Possible, certainly, but is it entirely
desirable?
My
own experience is that there is an assertiveness in the trumpet,
compared to the more undemonstrative and subtly ingratiating
sound of the oboe, that quite upsets the balance of the pieces
here transcribed from Albinoni, Handel and Telemann.
Of
the pieces originally written for trumpet, the brief three-movement
Sinfonia by Giuseppe Torelli and the five-movement Sonata by
Domenico Gabrielli were both written for the Basilica di San
Petronio in Bologna. Torelli, Veronese by birth, studied with
Perti in Bologna and was a member of the orchestra at San Petronio
from 1686 to 1695, and after it had been reformed, from 1701-1709.
A virtuoso violinist himself, quite a number of his compositions
featured the trumpet, and were no doubt written with the famous
trumpeter Giovanni Pellegrino Brandi in mind (who appears to
have been playing at San Petronio between 1679 and 1699). The
tradition of music for solo trumpet was particularly strong
in Bologna. It was a tradition that splendid trumpet music should
be performed at the opening of High Mass every year on the fourth
of October, the feast day of San Petronio. Domenico Gabrielli
was a highly regarded cellist, and held the position of first
cello in the orchestra of San Petronio between 1680 and 1687.
As well as writing – inevitably for Brandi – he seems to have
been fond of the trumpet, since his cantatas and operas often
give the instrument a prominent solo role. The pieces by both
Torelli and Gabrielli are attractive representations of the
trumpet tradition in Bologna and are played with some panache
by Thomas Reiner, though, given the sheer size of San Petronio
and what, on the one occasion I heard live music there, struck
me as a rather resonant acoustic, I suspect that they may originally
have been taken rather more slowly.
Fasch’s
Concerto a 8, in three fairly brief movements (the central
largo comes in at under a minute) is a graceful work of no exceptional
merit, though the way in which, in its closing allegro, the
minuet theme is commented on by the trumpet is relatively unusual
and the whole of this final movement has real charm. Telemann’s
Sonata in D major is in three movements, the outer two (allegro
and vivace) being stylishly galant while the quasi-theatrical
central largo packs a little more punch, emotionally speaking.
Handel’s
Suite in D major was first published in 1733 – probably without
the composer’s approval – as The Famous Water Piece Compos’d
by Mr Handel. It begins with an Overture from the Water
Music, but the remaining four movements have no such origin.
Whether they are all by Handel is perhaps uncertain, but they
add up to a pleasant enough sequence; the central air has some
pleasant inventions and melodic twists, and there’s a lively
and engaging bourrée.
The
disc is well recorded and the performances throughout are thoroughly
professional and competent. The South West German Chamber Orchestra
Pforzheim plays on modern instruments, but has taken on board
some of the lessons of the period performance movement. Reiner
clearly has a fine command of his instrument and, as conductor,
Tewinkel is assured and purposeful. The results are eminently
listenable. Yet one misses the insights which real specialists
in this music bring to it, and there’s a certain homogeneity,
a kind of all-purpose baroque manner which doesn’t do enough
to characterise individual pieces and to register the differences
between, say, Italian and German idioms.
Glyn Pursglove
see also Review
by Brian Wilson
Thomas Reiner
(trumpet) 
