MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

La trompette retrouvée
Jean-Philippe RAMEAU (1683-1764)
Naïs: Suite (1748) (arr. Pienaar) [16:57]
Reynaldo HAHN (1874-1947)
Á Chloris (1916) [3:03]
Emanuel CHABRIER (1841-1894)
Suite for Trumpet and Piano (1881-1891) (arr. Pienaar) [15:04]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 123: Romanza (1905) (arr. Freeman-Attwood) [7:37]
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 108 (1917) (arr. Freeman-Attwood) [21:23]
Jonathan Freeman-Attwood (trumpet)
Daniel-Ben Pienaar (piano)
rec. St. George's, Brandon Hill, Bristol, July 2006
LINN CKD294 [64:46]

 

Experience Classicsonline
 

The title of this album translates as "the trumpet found again". I'd not realized it was lost. Your feelings about the program may well depend simply on how you like this sort of transcription. The whole enterprise reminded me of the days when James Galway and Richard Stoltzman were more or less appropriating each other's repertoire (for the flute and clarinet respectively), though you can make a stronger case for expanding the limited chamber repertoire available to the trumpet. 

The trumpet isn't so far from home, after all, in the eight-movement Rameau suite - though it's been a while since I've heard a full-sized modern instrument essaying Baroque music - which offers a good overall impression of Jonathan Freeman-Attwood's playing. He places every note precisely, maintaining clean articulation even in movements like the Sarabande, using carefully gauged dynamics to shape the lyric lines rather than pouring on a cornettish legato. Conversely, he ends the Rigaudons with a dazzling display of double- and triple-tonguing, and keeps the embellishments smartly in time in the Tambourins even as Daniel-Ben Pienaar, a fine pianist, struggles a bit with them. 

From Rameau to the Romantics who dominate the rest of the program may seem quite the forward leap, but Reynaldo Hahn's song Á Chloris, an affectionate hommage to the Baroque, bridges the gap appropriately. The chaste clarity with which Freeman-Attwood intones the vocal line acknowledges its older roots. 

Pianist Pienaar has assembled the Chabrier suite from four of the composer's piano pieces; indeed, he retains the third, Feuillet d'album, as a piano solo, giving it a pearly, gentle touch. Chabrier's distinctive juxtaposition of refinement and hearty wit marks all four movements, with Freeman-Attwood underlining the spirited country-dance element in the closing Scherzo-valse at a moderate, lilting pace. 

As you might guess, the pieces composed for strings undergo the greatest transformation. The Saint-Saëns sonata movement proves so effective on its own terms that it's difficult to reimagine it in its original cello version. Freeman-Attwood's carefully etched phrasing brings out the music's plangent undercurrents, with the solo line rising to peaks of stoic isolation. A brief cadenza-like outburst at 5:15 transfers nicely: the soloist's crisp tonguing aptly reproduces the edge of rapid bowing, while many a cellist will envy his pinpoint intonation. 

Fauré's violin sonata, too, works better than you'd expect, with the transfer to the trumpet highlighting unexplored facets of the music: for example, the opening solo phrases, forthrightly attacked, sound startlingly angular, before the music settles into the customary undulations. The trumpet does seem awfully bright in the central Andante, where the lyric lines blossom with a sort of restrained passion; Freeman-Attwood's pillowy pulsings in the finale are most appealing. 

Recording the solo trumpet effectively is more difficult than you might think: too close a pickup and the overtones become piercing; too distant, and the focus is needlessly smudged. Linn's engineers, predictably, get these things just right, with just enough ambience to give the instrument some space. And the full-bodied piano sound avoids the blanched, shallow reproduction that has marred other, similar productions.

Stephen Francis Vasta


 




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.