Egregore+
Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741)
‘Agitata da due venti’ from Griselda, RV 718. (1735) [5:27]
(arr. Ángel Mendoza, 2018)
Isaac ALBENIZ (1860-1909)
Iberia, Book II (1906) (arr. Efraín Oscher, 2018, as Suite Iberia) [21:22]
Efraín OSCHER (b.1974)
Rhapsodia latina (2018) [13:06]
Théo CHARLIER (1868-1944)
Solo de concours (1900, arr. Efraín Oscher, 2018) [8:00]
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887-1959)
Bachianas Brasileiras No.5 (1938/45) (arr. Efraín Oscher, 2018) [10:22]
Fábio Brum (cornets, trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo cornet), Kammerensemble Konsonanz/Pacho Flores
rec. 2018, Immanuel Kapelle, Bremen, Germany
Premiere recordings (Albeniz, Oscher)
NAXOS 8.574204 [58:28]
You may, as I did, find the title of this CD somewhat puzzling. The booklet notes, which are by the soloist Fábio Brum, begin by offering an explanation: “In an occult or magical context, an ‘Egregore’ is a thought-form that encompasses a group entity, and is the result of two or more people sharing their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energies. This album is new, modern and innovative, but nonetheless has a deep respect for the established art form. The idea is to influence listeners to enjoy the varied trumpet family, in a new and positive way, thus [sic] being the reason for the plus (+) sign in the title EGREGORE+.”. Does that help? Does Brum’s opening sentence amount to much more than a very fanciful way of saying that this album is a collaborative effort? Most music-making is – and it isn’t clear to me why this particular example should be talked about in the language of occult magic. In the passage from “The idea” to “the title EGREGORE+”, I am unable to discern very much in the way of exact meaning.
So, somewhat defeated, I decided to concentrate on the actual music. The immediately striking things about the programme on this CD are, first, the number of different instruments Fábio Brum plays and, secondly, how much of the music is newly arranged from very disparate sources – an operatic aria by Vivaldi, piano music by Isaac Albeniz and the best known of the Bachianas Brasileiras by Villa-Lobos. There is, of course, no intrinsic problem with either of these things, and my initial listening confirmed the security of Fábio Brum’s technique across the instruments he plays, though I also thought that his work had a rather limited emotional range and weight.
That brings us to the several arrangements. I have to confess that, in the great majority of cases (though there are exceptions, for example good lute arrangements of Bach’s cello suites), I experience arrangements with some sense of loss. How far this is simply a matter of familiarity, that one is simply disappointed not to hear the sound(s) one associates with a particular piece of music, it is hard to know. But, to take the first track on this album, the aria ‘Agitata da due venti’ from Vivaldi’s Griselda, arranged for cornet in F and chamber orchestra (here the consistently impressive Kammerensemble Konsonanz) by Ángel Mendoza (b. 1987), for all the obvious skill of Brum’s playing, I didn’t find either the sheer excitement of Sumi Jo’s recording of the aria (Baroque Journey, Warner Classics) or the emotional expressivity of that by Cecilia Bartoli (Live in Italy, Decca). I found myself unavoidably making similar comparisons where the arrangement of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 was concerned and largely when listening to Oscher’s Suite Iberia. The case of Théo Charlier’s Solo de concours is slightly different. Originally for trumpet and piano, this arrangement is essentially a matter of orchestration. And, too, the original form of the piece, at least where I am concerned, is far less familiar. The only recording I can remember hearing (though I am sure there must be others) is by the trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich accompanied by Thomas Duis (La Belle Epoque: French Music for Trumpet and Piano, Capriccio). But is this the only reason why this arrangement works more successfully than those of the Vivaldi and the Villa-Lobos? I suspect not. What also matters, I think, is that the solo ‘voice’ in the original was a member of the trumpet family, as it is in this new arrangement, whereas in the cases of the Vivaldi and the Villa-Lobos the human voice has been replaced by a member of the trumpet family. It is also relevant here that the major change in the arrangement of the Charlier is the replacement of the piano accompaniment by an arrangement for orchestra. All of these factors (and possibly some I have overlooked) probably contribute to the success of the arrangement. In fact, Efraín’s orchestration is far more interesting and colourful than the relatively penny-plain piano accompaniment in the original, so that the ‘trumpet’ part has a more rewarding backcloth. This is a particularly attractive track, one in which the arrangement is (apologies to brass specialists) a more interesting piece of music.
Efraín Oscher is also represented by an original work, his Rhapsodia latina. This was written specially for Fábio Brum and its Latin-American nature has a relevance to both the soloist and the arranger: Brum is Brazilian and Oscher, who has been based in Germany for some years, was born in Uruguay and brought up in Venezuela. Brum deploys three different instruments in the piece, initially playing the B flat trumpet in passages which draw on Cuban rhythms, then the flugelhorn in a bolero and, in the closing section, given over to Brazilian choro, a piccolo cornet in A. Those brass specialists to whom I alluded earlier will now be asking “what is a piccolo cornet in A?”. I can best answer the question by quoting once more from Fabio Brum’s booklet notes, “The piccolo cornet in A, which did not exist prior to this album, and was specially designed for this recording, allows the soloist to clearly show the complex rhythms and melodic figures, characteristic of this cheerful style of music, easily reaching the high register typical of an oboe or clarinet”. The Rapsodia latina is full of vivacious music, by turns sophisticated and earthy, evocative and forceful. Oscher has clearly learned a great deal from the great Latin American masters of orchestration (such as Ginastera or Chavez). Indeed, my pleasure in this Rapsodia is such that I find myself wishing that Brum could have found more original works of this quality and chosen to record them, rather than so many arrangements. Oscher’s Rapsodia latina will, I am sure, be the piece on this CD to which I shall return most frequently.
Glyn Pursglove
