Search - Wynton Marsalis, Haydn, Hummel :: Trumpet Concertos

JUST ABOUT IDEAL

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 04/03/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the time of Bach and Handel the trumpet was a melodic instrument. By the time of Haydn, the Mozarts and Hummel the dot-and-dash treatment had become normal, and it stayed that way in classical orchestration until Wagner came on earth to see to its redemption. This makes it all the more pleasant and surprising to find such agreeable minor masterpieces from these composers for the instrument as a concerto solo. Haydn never showed his full powers in the concerto form, but the trumpet concerto is, I think by common consent, the best he did in the genre. Leopold Mozart's has only two movements here, an adagio and a concluding allegro, from which I presume that the normal opening allegro has been lost, unless for some inscrutable reason he chose to depart from the usual 3-movement scheme. Hummel's is a most attractive piece, rather larger than Haydn's and a good introduction to the composer for musicians who know him only as a figure given a passing mention in books on Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.



Wynton Marsalis strikes me as an out-and-out genius. I like just about everything he does here. The quality of his playing is not only perfect technically, it is aristocratic. There are any number of exquisite touches of variation of tone, and from beginning to end he has an easy sense of the idiom of the works, and he brings a relaxed charm to the whole recital. I don't know who the `National Philharmonic' are in real life, but I know very well who Leppard is, and I don't doubt that he had a lot to do with the felicitous choice of tempi. The outer movements of the Haydn are neither rushed nor dragged but just right to my ears. The same can be said of Hummel's first movement, and I particularly like the speed taken in the andante - kept moving but not succumbing to a modern tendency to hustle things marked `andante', a treatment I heard this movement given in a broadcast performance only a few days ago. Once the orchestral triplets start to sound tense the speed is too fast, and it was a pleasure to hear them given the proper easy-going beat that they get here. In the last movement they all let rip, the speed fast, the solo playing thrilling, but still as relaxed and effortless as ever - a bit like Michelangeli at his piano on one of his better days.



Entire credit goes to Marsalis for his own cadenzas in the Haydn and his own ornamentation in the Mozart. All in all, this is a gem of a record, and I recommend it in particular to music lovers who may have been told that Hummel is dull."