Search - Johann Friedrich Fasch, George Frideric Handel, Johann Melchior Molter :: The Art of the Baroque Trumpet, Vol. 1

On Baroque trumpet? WOW!

conquistador69 | 07/18/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording presents unparalleled musicality. The technique of course is flawless. His interpretations of the pieces are so strong. There are so many good things to say about this CD. This is a must for any classical trumpet player's CD library."

The Trumpet Gave Up More Than It Gained...

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 09/28/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"... when it succumbed to the temptation of piston valves in the early 19th C. What it gained was a few extra notes in its drab fundamental register, plus the possibility of playing more closely in tune with equal temperament, plus an easier technique to master. What it gave up was its maidenly virtue, its angelic singing timbre and flexibility in its upper stratocirrus partials. Modern trumpeters, who have felt their chops at risk on the highest passages of Bach and other Baroque composers, have turned to a shorter tube, the so-called Bach trumpet, a kazoo with valves. If you think I'm being tendentious here (snarky, for younger readers), you're correct. But after you've listened to the five volumes of Niklas Ekland's "The Art of the Baroque Trumpet", you may find yourself agreeing with me.



Eklund learned trumpet exactly as a trumpeter of the 17th C would have... from his trumpeter father, beginning at age five. In fact, he is the fourth generation of Eklund trumpeters. I doubt there was ever any other way to learn the instrument. Trumpeters were highly-prized and well-paid throughout Europe in the centuries of the Renaissance and Baroque; they had their own guilds and their own traditions. As Eklund says, the technique needed to play baroque trumpet is quite different from that of modern trumpet, and it isn't automatic that one will give you the other. The trumpet Eklund plays on these CDs is a modern 'copy' made by Reiner Egger of an instrument made around 1700 by Johann Leonard Ehe II, perhaps also a fourth-generation craftsman. The historical natural trumpet played most comfortably in mean-tone. The 'baroque trumpet' of common use today has one or more small holes drilled in the tubing, which can be covered and uncovered by the player's fingers. This was introduced among modern makers by otto Steinkopf in the 1960s; there are still some trumpeters who reject it as an innovation, but in fact it may have been known to players of the 18th C already. The 'keyed' trumpet for which Haydn wrote his glorious Concerto in E-flat major could not have been played very well on the Ehe trumpet, but its construction implies that the hole-in-tubing effects were already understood. In every other way, the haydn trumpet was far closer to the baroque trumpet in construction and technique than to the modern valved trumpet.



In Volume 1 of "The Art of the Baroque Trumpet", Eklund plays a range of pieces from an early Italian concerto of Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) to the 1762 trumpet concerto of Leopold Mozart (1719-1787). Except for the Torelli and a sonata by Henry Purcell from 1694, all the music on this recording and most of the music on the other volumes of the set is by German-born composers. That might indicate that the trumpet was most highly admired as a solo instrument in Germany, but it might also reflect the historical fact that most of the best trumpeters, from the 15th to the 18th Centuries and even in the Italian city-states like Ferrara, were Germans. T



Born in Halle, Germany, George Frideric Handel made ample use of the trumpet in both his operas and his later oratorios. The "celebrated Water Piece" for trumpet and orchestra in five movements is NOT the same stuff as the famous "Water Music" performed on a barge in the Thames; the overture is adapted from the second suite of the "Water Music" but the other movements appear to be taken from operas.



In terms of muscular athleticism, baroque trumpet playing should be an Olympic sport. All the technique is accomplished by the small muscles of the lips and cheeks and the tongue. Those muscles are the strongest proportionately of the human body, and the fine control of them which the trumpeter needs has been programmed by the evolution of speech. Nevertheless, when you hear what Niklas Eklund does with just his embouchure -- the amazing high notes, the precison of his trills, the 'saltos mortales' he makes between upper and lower octaves -- you may find his pure physical virtuosity nearly unbelievable.



The composers on this CD include Purcell, Handel, L. Mozart, GP Telemann, JM Molter, and JF Fasch. I'll be reviewing the subsequent four CDs of "The Art of the Baroque Trumpet" soon."