Ib GLINDEMANN (1934-2019)
Trumpet Concerto (1962) [15:53]
Trombone Concerto (2017) [17:17]
Medley (arr. Ib Glindemann and Wolfgang Käfer) (2020) [12:23]
Per Morten Bye (trumpet), Robert Holmsted (trombone), Odense Symphony Orchestra/Giordano Bellincampi
rec. May 2019, Carl Nielsen Salen, Odense Koncerthus, Denmark
DACAPO 6.220665 SACD [45:34]
Ib Glindemann was a well-known big band leader whose horizons were expanded when he heard Stan Kenton, even though his early inspiration had been the touring Louis Armstrong in 1949. The Danish musician was himself a trumpeter, academically trained, and an early exponent of post-war jazz but he was also active as head of music on pirate radio. In the 1960s he began to compose classical scores – his First Symphony was poorly received by the critics – some of them occupying a fruitful and communicative territory between jazz and lighter classical models.
One such is the scintillating Trumpet Concerto of 1962 which the composer recorded the following year with the original soloist Knud Hovaldt, a member of the Royal Danish Orchestra. It was coupled for RCA with the Haydn - Ancient and Modern on twelve-inch vinyl. In this Dacapo CD the soloist is Per Morten Bye. It’s in three movements with a catch-as-catch-can ebullience, bright, genial and full of good tunes. He doesn’t stint long-breathed lyricism in the slow movement where one can also find succulent filmic orchestral support and an appealing, generous warmth. For the finale Glindemann gives the soloist a musical cape who then lets loose his inner matador. Here is Iberian caper and sunshine, complete with crisp cadential passages, a more becalmed second subject, and an inevitable resumption of Castilian ésprit. Trumpeters: lend an ear to Bye’s ebullient performance and dig out the score of this capricious and fun-packed work.
A couple of years before he died Glindemann worked with Robert Holmsted of the Odense Symphony orchestra and together they collaborated on a Trombone Concerto, with Holmsted starring in its premiere recording. There are percussive glints here - though for a jazz-oriented composer he doesn’t generally have recourse to too much percussion in these concertos - along with a fanfare element and hints of Big Band writing at the close of the opening movement. There’s a strong filmic feel in the Adagio cantabile, complete with Steineresque romance. It’s a diner at dusk in the 40s, you feel, an adulterous couple twirling the key of a roadside motel room, something very much on their minds. And the finale offers a breezy way out, witty, and frolicsome for the trombone – the kind of thing Leroy Anderson might have written.
The final work is a medley of four of Glindemann’s programme and film scores, compressed into a 12-minute piece that was fashioned in a collaboration between the Odense orchestra and the Czech-Danish arranger Wolfgang Käfer. The first section offers a pleasing insouciant waltz, music of sheer charm, then a slow and dreamy The Little Mermaid, wistful and slightly melancholic. The final panel is jaunty and jazzy with a sense of strutting brio that sounds a little like Eric Coates in unbuttoned mood. As with both concertos, Giordano Bellincampi sounds totally at home. He’s a perceptive choice as conductor as he’s a brass player himself (a trombonist with the Royal Danish Orchestra before taking up the baton) and the orchestra responds with deft sympathy.
With a vivid and well-judged recording and first-class notes the only thing missing here is another work, as the disc lasts only 45-minutes. If you’re happy with that you will find much to enjoy here; uncomplicated but expertly crafted and communicative brass concertos and plenty of wit, humour and romance.
Jonathan Woolf
