RECORDING OF THE MONTH     CHOPIN Waltzes and Impromptus Vladimir Feltsman £11 post free World-wide VIVALDI The four seasons London Mozart Players/Juritz £12 post free World-wide BEETHOVEN Symphonies 4 and 5 LSO/Yondani Butt £12 post free World-wide

Buy through MusicWeb for £14.60 postage paid. You may prefer to pay by Sterling cheque or Euro notes to avoid PayPal. Contactfor details Purchase button

La Belle Époque - French music for trumpet and piano Theo CHARLIER (1868-1944) Solo de concours [6.56] Francis THOMÉ (1850-1909) Fantaisie (1902) [5.10] J G PENNEQUIN Morceau de concert [6.45] Joseph Guy ROPARTZ (1864-1955) Andante et Allegro [5.08] Philippe GAUBERT (1879-1941) Cantabile et Scherzetto (1909) [4.43] Guillaume BELAY Andante et Allegretto [3.51] Camille ERLANGER (1863-1919) Solo de trompette chromatique (1901) [6.20] Alexandre GEORGES Légende de Larmor (1904) [6.08] George ENESCU (1881-1955) Légende (1906) [5.50] Gabriel PARES (1860-1934) Premier Solo (1897) [4.54] Fantaisie Caprice (1911) [4.20] Crepuscule [4.12] Andre GEDALGE (1856-1926) Piece [2.59] Augustin SAVARD (1861-1942) Morceau de concours (1903) [7.01] Reinhold Friedrich (trumpet and cornet) Thomas Duis (piano) rec. Sandhausen, Clara-Wieck-Auditorium, Tonstudio Teije van Geest, March 2005 CAPRICCIO 67 152 [74.49]

A well-chosen title for a well researched and performed disc. The engine of the disc is the trumpet or cornet morceau or the Parisian conservatoire test piece, both of which demand virtuosity and surety of phrasing. Many fall into the two sectional plan with a lyric opening section followed by a declamatory finale but all make cogent and strong demands. Many of the composers here are brass specialists, others – Ropartz, Enescu - are much better known and whose forays into the field were limited. Whether written for trumpet or cornet none of these pieces lasts more than seven minutes and this concision adds to their effective realisation. Charlier’s Solo has a clipped military air in its second part whilst Thomé, composer of the once ubiquitous café fiddler’s favourite Simple Aveu, throws off his discreet shackles for a robust, fugal, confident Fantaisie. Written for the fatter sounding cornet it belies its rather wispy title. Pennequin opens with a fanfare-like call to arms and his "multi-movement" Morceau requires some strong lips in the final section – notably in the stentorian declamation of the final cadences. Turn to Ropartz of course and you encounter a different kind of brass writing, one informed by modality, by depth in the andante section and by an equally confident brassy heroic conclusion – it makes for a real Andante and Allegro, one that shows the bisected nature of almost all these pieces with honest explicitness. Balay wrote a similarly titled work but it’s very much par for the course and not a patch on Ropartz. Alexandre Georges contributes a rather charming, vaguely impressionist/romantic reminiscence which bears up reasonably against the very different Enescu Légende with its tensile lyricism. Pares contributes several pieces – his Premier Solo has wit and brash confidence and Crepuscule has a quiescent quality not often encountered in this repertoire and one that makes for a fine close to the disc. The Friedrich-Duis team is a formidable one; they ease over the rather binary objectivity of so many of these test and salon pieces and vest the more questing ones with no little distinction. Decent notes as well and attractive recording quality. Not to be taken all at one sitting, certainly, but to be enjoyed one morceau at a time. Jonathan Woolf     Advertising Rates Visitor stats MusicWeb International has over 40,000 Classical CD reviews on offer Discs received Having a problem Donating? Gerard Hoffnung Concerts & The Bricklayer Story   New Releases New Releases   MusicWeb sells the Polish catalogue CDAccord £10.50 post free W-W MusicWeb sells the Arcodiva catalogue £12.00 post free W-W £11.75 post-free world- wide MusicWeb can now offer you discs from the following catalogues: Prices include postage [Acte Préalable £13.50] [Arcodiva £12.00] [Avie from £6.25] [British Music Society £12.00] [CDACCORD from £13.50 ] [ClassicO £12.50] [Hallé from £11] [Heritage £10] [Hortus £14.99 ] [Lyrita ONLY £11.75 ] [Nimbus Special prices] [Northern Flowers £13.50] [REDCLIFFE £11 ] [Sheva £11] [Tactus £11.50 ] [Talent from £12.00 ] [Toccata Classics £10.50 ] Musicweb Special Offers Monthly Best Buys     Google Ads - for information about privacy matters, click here.  Amazon Musicweb International is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Return to Index

Reviews from previous months Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.