This album is essentially
a sampler drawn from Rolf Smedvig's
extensive Telarc discography. The first
three tracks on the album and a couple
later on come from Smedvig's two concerto
CDs with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
under Jahja Ling. The majority of the
tracks, though, feature Smedvig as leader
of Empire Brass, arguably the world's
best known brass quintet, of which he
is a founding member.
If you have heard any
of Smedvig's playing before, you will
know that he has a distinctive, mellifluous
and smooth-edged tone as a trumpeter,
which is remarkably consistent throughout
his range. All of the tracks assembled
here demonstrate this admirably, and
if your primary concern in purchasing
a disc like this is the quality of the
trumpet playing, then you can purchase
with confidence. There are some programming
issues though.
All of the concerto
extracts are brilliantly played, but
while some movements can just about
stand alone – the final movements of
the Haydn and Hummel concertos, for
example – others suffer from being out
of context. Whoever thought it would
be a good idea to start the disc with
the final movement of Bach's second
Brandenburg Concerto was clearly enthralled
by Smedvig's art and oblivious to Bach's.
It makes the album sound like it has
begun in half way through, or like a
couple of tracks have been skipped.
It would have been better, in my view,
to have either kept this disc an all
Empire Brass affair, or to have bookended
it with complete concerto performances.
There is room for another 22 minutes
of music on this disc – more than enough
time to have accommodated the other
two movements of the second Brandenburg
Concerto and to have closed the disc
with, say, the complete Tartini concerto
without any other change to the programme.
Of the non-concerto
items, there is plenty to entertain
and excite. The Holborne item is perky
and exciting, though the tambourine
gets to be a bit tiresome. The Siciliene
is quite lovely. Smedvig's bright tone
brings shine to Bach's famous Badinerie,
but his ornamentation feels overdone
and will offend purists – assuming they
are able to countenance a trumpet playing
the flute part in the first place! And
then there is the Sibley Sanctus
Lydian, a modal chant that recalls
– or, rather, is recalled by – the lonely
trumpet that intones at the Catacombs
in Respighi's Pines of Rome.
Smedvig plays beautifully here, but
the computerised percussion is really
very irritating.
The arrangements of
classical favourites that fill out the
rest of the programme are quite impressive
and include the stand out tracks from
a couple of albums previously reviewed
on this site: the Bacchanale
from Saint-Saëns' Samson et
Dalila, and the Dance
of the Comedians from Smetana's
Bartered Bride.
The booklet notes offer
a brief biography of Rolf Smedvig and
details of the albums from which the
various tracks on this compilation are
drawn, but no information on the music
itself. This only reinforces the point
I made earlier in this review. If your
primary concern is Smedvig's impressive
artistry and you have little interest
in the music for its own sake, then
this album will suit you nicely. If
you are interested in the music as well,
you would do better to pick up a couple
of Smedvig's other discs instead. My
recommendations would be the disc of
trumpet concertos from which the Haydn,
Hummel, Tartini and Bellini extracts
are taken (Telarc CD-80232) and an Empire
Brass disc this sampler does not sample:
Braggin' in Brass (Telarc CD-80249),
featuring arrangements of Duke Ellington,
Fats Waller and others.
Tim Perry
Rolf Smedvig (trumpet); Michael Murray
(organ)#; Empire Brass^; 
