---

Baroque Trumpet Music
Richard MUDGE (1718-1763)
Trumpet Concerto in D major ( (1749) [10:40]
Jeremiah CLARKE (c.1674-1707)
Suite in D major [13:40]
Capel BOND (1730-1790)
Trumpet Concerto in D major (1766) (ed. Finzi) [7:46]
Carlo TESSARINI (c.1690-c.1766)
Trumpet Concerto in D major from Sonata for violin or flute and harpsichord [8:21]
Francesco VERACINI (1690-1768)
Trumpet Concerto in E minor, from Sonata for violin and continuo, Op.8 No.2 (arr. Jean Thilde) [7:01]
Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741)
Trumpet Concerto in D major, from Violin Sonata RV10 (arr. Jean Thilde) [5:36]
Trumpet Concerto in G minor, from Il pastor fido, No.6 (arr. Jean Thilde) [5:00]
Georg Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Trumpet Concerto in D minor, from Sonata in D minor for recorder or violin and continuo, HWV367a [9:49]
Georg Philip TELEMANN (1681-1767)
Double Concerto for trumpet and oboe in C minor [10:01]¹
Maurice André (trumpet)
Pierre Pierlot (oboe)¹
L’Ensemble Orchestral de L’Oiseau-Lyre/Pierre Colombo (Mudge, Clarke, Bond, Tessarini), rec. 1957
Orchestra de Chambre Jean-François Paillard/Jean-François Paillard (remainder), rec. 1968
REGIS RRC1405 [76:09]
 
This disc emerges fittingly soon after the death of Maurice André. Warner’s voluminous edition dedicated to the trumpeter embraced many concertos and arrangements and took up several box sets’ worth of remarkable things, but a single disc is always of value if it introduces new listeners to a great artist’s legacy, and at a very reasonable price.
 
André’s repertoire was strongly concentrated on recordings, often multiply, of the Baroque repertoire. This selection gives us a plethora of such things. That said, the English selection may not be as well known as the recordings with Paillard and his eponymous band. These earlier ones were recorded with L’Ensemble Orchestral de L’Oiseau-Lyre under Pierre Colombo and present Richard Mudge’s 1749 concerto, a compact, stately and charming work from a little-known composer. It’s dispatched with insouciant command. Jeremiah Clarke’s Suite in D major contains the famous Prince of Denmark’s March – played quite discreetly here, with a welcome lack of brilliantine – and its eight movements are engagingly done. The Serenade tends to get overshadowed by the March but not here and the buoyant Gigue is a delight. The accompaniment is somewhat jog-trotting. Capel Bond has received a few recordings over the last twenty years. It was Gerald Finzi who edited his D major concerto for performance, the edition played here, and this work of around 1754, though published a decade later, shows a composer who may well have known Mudge’s concerto and repays that knowledge with a taut but expressive work of his own.
 
The remainder of the programme comes from the Paillard years, and is much more familiar. There are the extrovert pleasures of the concertos by Tessarini and Veracini, an Italianate brace that get straight to the point with extrovert flair. There are two Vivaldian concoctions, arranged from various sources by the man who did a lot of this kind of thing for the trumpeter, namely Jean Thilde. Suave lyricism and virtuosic panache are part and parcel of the Handel – the central movement, a Furiso, is brilliantly done to such an extent that you can never imagine it being bettered. Telemann’s Concerto pairs the trumpeter with oboist Pierre Pierlot in a most sensitively shaped performance.
 
There are a few incongruous things about the documentation. Gavin Dixon’s notes are fine but his brief obviously stopped at Vivaldi because there’s nothing about the Handel and Telemann and I’m sure he would have added that the Handel is derived from Sonata in D minor for recorder or violin and continuo, HWV367a. And then there’s the dating. The Paillard recordings are dated as being published in 1958 but they sound to me as if these are the 1968 recordings. There are a few clicks on my copy (track 36; the Telemann) which sound like a production affair or maybe come from an LP pressing. So a few things to be ironed out and I stand to be corrected about the dating. Otherwise this is a reasonable single disc survey for neophytes.
 
Jonathan Woolf

Support us financially by purchasing this disc from