"Off the Wall"
is the phrase that comes to mind. How
many supposedly classical CDs do you
encounter that begin with a cow mooing
loudly to the accompaniment of bird-song,
a burbling stream and a cheerful trumpet
fanfare? Well, this one does, and the
Fanfare der grünen Kuh (Fanfare
of the Green Cow) which makes such
an auspicious opening to this recording
is succeeded by such gems as Unterwasser-Fanfare
(Underwater Fanfare), Fanfare für
den faulen Trompeter (Fanfare for the
Lazy Trumpeter) and Fanfare der
Leisen Spinne (Fanfare for the
quiet spider), while track 6 – Fanfare
for the Lazy Trumpeter Version C – is
entirely silent, and dedicated, unsurprisingly,
to John Cage.
This engaging load
of nonsense brings to mind very much
the tongue-in-cheek Berio of, for example,
the trombone Sequenza. This very
odd CD then progresses into slightly
more extended pieces. A three-part treatment
of Goethe’s Der Erlkönig (given
as The Elf-king) follows, firstly
for spoken voice, in full, then a humorously
‘potted’ version, and finally another
abbreviation of the text with ‘descriptive’
music for trumpet and piano. Fairly
hilarious, if your German is up to it!
And so it goes on;
I confess that I eventually found the
repertoire of slides and ‘funny’ noises
became wearing. Otto is however a talented
and unusual guy. He has taken the trouble
of interspersing the more obscure utterances
with some accessible and immediately
enjoyable numbers. These include the
bittersweet Calme or the faux-naïf
Simple Evening Song that fills
the last track.
This is a strange but
actually quite attractive CD: it could,
for example, provide highly atmospheric
background music for a certain kind
of drinks party. Whether that’s a recommendation
or not I leave up to you; suffice it
to say, I enjoyed it.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Michael T. Otto, Bb trumpet, flügelhorn,
muschelhorn, didgeridoo; Claudia C. Otto, speaker;
Andrea Grözinger, piano; Sepp Schlotter,
techno play-a-long (sic); Peter Madsen, jazz
piano