MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
Crotchet

 

Alison Balsom: Trumpet Concertos
Johann Nepomuk HUMMEL (1778-1837)
Trumpet concerto in E flat major (1803) [17:50]
Franz Joseph HAYDN  (1732-1809)
Trumpet concerto in E flat major (1796) [14:44]
Giuseppe TORELLI (1658-1709)
Trumpet concerto in D major [5:52]
Jan Křtitel Jiři NERUDA (1711-1776)
Trumpet concerto in E flat major (ca 1760s) [14:23]
Alison Balsom (trumpet)
Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
rec. February 9-13, 2008, Evangelish-Lutherische Kirche, Lunsen
EMI CLASSICS 2162130 [52:50] 
Experience Classicsonline


Alison Balsom must be a concert promoter’s dream: she is young, beautiful and very talented. This is her fourth CD for EMI, and the first to concentrate on concertos.  The earlier discs were predominantly transcriptions and miniatures - see Christopher Thomas’s review of her Debut album EMI 5756832. Now with the two staples of the repertoire – Haydn and Hummel – she has demonstrated the desire to be taken seriously.
 

Let me get the only two negatives out of the road first: the programme is somewhat unbalanced, presenting as it does, the two “big” concertos first, and secondly, it is a rather miserly running time. Yes, there aren’t that many trumpet concertos, but sub-hour CDs these days are really not acceptable, not matter how well played. 

Be in no doubt: this is very, very well played.  Balsom’s tone is silky smooth, yet bell-like in its clarity.  There is no harshness at all in her playing, even in phrases of extreme difficulty. I have seen the adjective “poetic” applied to this recording in another review – I couldn’t agree more.  Her playing brought to mind the great Maurice André in its sheer musicality. 

Lest you start to think that this is all honeyed and amorphous, please don’t – there is great verve and spirit in the faster movements; the opening of the final movement of the Hummel bears witness to this.  The solo part in the Torelli rings out bright and clear, and even the relatively mundane Neruda sounds as good as it probably ever will on record.  I heard this in concert in the gardens of the palace of Würzburg and even those extraordinarily grand surroundings could only elevate it to the ranks of pleasant! 

My standard for many years for the Haydn and Hummel has been Håkan Hardenberger with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy on Philips 4202032: a superior coupling of concertos by Johann Hertel and Johann Stamitz.  Listening to the two led me to the conclusion that Hardenberger’s athleticism was trumped by Balsom’s musicality – I wanted to listen to the latter again straight away. 

I also found in the process of writing this review that Norway has its own Alison Balsom: her name is Tine Thing Helseth, and she too is beautiful, young and blonde.  Earlier in 2008, she also released a CD which has the Haydn, Hummel and Neruda concertos (Simax PSC1292) – instead of the Torelli is a transcription of an Albinoni oboe concerto.  However, comparisons with Balsom vanished as soon as the music began - I listened to it via my Naxos Music Library subscription. Helseth is colourless and uninspiring, and totally overshadowed by Balsom. 

The conductor-less Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen are equal partners in this endeavour: they are fleet, crisp and totally attuned to Balsom’s playing.  I would love to hear them by themselves in Mozart and Haydn symphonies. They are far superior to the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra who play quite limply, and much better recorded than the ASMF who sound like they are in the next building. 

This is an OpenDisc recording, which is a rather underwhelming feature: it allows you access to “exclusive” promotional on the EMI website when you put the disc in your computer.  There are a few videos promoting new EMI & Virgin releases, curiously none of them with Alison Balsom. There is, however, a seven minute EMI promo video on YouTube if you would like to hear her talk about the Haydn, and see her play at the recording session. 

I see that ArkivMusic have included this CD in their top recordings for 2008. I can’t disagree: it will be in my Recordings of the Year for 2009.  I won’t discard the Hardenberger because of the couplings, but Alison Balsom is tops in Haydn and Hummel. 

David Barker 


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


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.