Anyone else like organ and brass?

I'm typing this, listening to this wonderfully sonorous offering:

http://www.musictap.net/Reviews/EmpireBrassQuintetBaroqueMusic.html

I bought it today, after a brief listen at the shop. I had to have it.

I love brass music (my first big musical hero was super-trumpeter Maurice André), I also love organ music. The combination I find irresistible.

The funny thing is, the combination barely existed until recently - to the best of my knowledge, there are very few baroque or classical works written specifically for the combination. For example, the great brass works of the Gabrielis for San Marco were not accompanied by the organ. I think it all started with That Man André, seeking to overcome the limited repertoire of the trumpet. The modern valved clarino trumpet allowed all sorts of possibilities not available to the old natural trumpets.

The first trumpet and organ record featured Hedwig Bilgram as organist (André seemed to work nearly always with lady organists - two others were Marie-Claire Alain and Jane Parker-Smith). This record features some of the very few authentic works for trumpet and organ (a series of chorales by Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780)). It also features absolutely the best performance of the Vivaldi trumpet concerto on record:

André went on to record a long series of trumpet and organ records for Erato and later HMV (I have most of them on vinyl). Now just about every trumpeter has a trumpet and organ record to his or her credit.

An especially recommendable CD is "Awake, the trumpet's lofty sound", made by the Läubin Brothers (three brothers who are all first trumpeters with German orchestras) and Simon Preston on organ.

I know that purists hate these sorts of "bleeding chunks" adaptions, but I just love the sound. If captured well, it's wonderfully sonorous and toe-curlingly delicious. The two sounds, the strident, clean, clear sound of the trumpet and the sonorities of a big pipe organ, just seem made fore each other. I wouldn't want to listen to it all day every day - that would be a bit like having ice cream for every meal - but what a musical dessert! Anybody else out there like it?

 

And there was me thinking you were about to discuss the legendary Jimmy Smith / Oliver Nelson pairing of the 60s! (Well I'm game if anyone else is…).

I've got a 4xLP box by Maurice André in my 'in tray' called 'King of the trumpet' on Philips. Its been sitting there for a while now, I've just grabbed it and stuck it by the deck so it will get played soon…

Tony.

 

In many German Evangelical (Protestant) churches they use a "Posaunenchor" which is a brass band instead of an organ to accompany the congregation. Sometimes they join the two together and I've always thought the sound very pleasant.

When I was a little younger I frequently visited my German aunt and uncle's family for Christmas. My uncle was a pastor (now retired) at a church in the very North of Germany (the half-island of Nordstrand in Schleswig Holstein). Since I could play both the organ (well not really, but my piano ability was sufficient for hymns) and the trumpet I frequently got roped into doing both (not at the same time mind ). It was a little tricky though because I didn't bring my own trumpet and the trumpets used in the German churches used a somewhat different fingering of the valves. It was done deliberately to stop church trumpeters all leaving for orchestras

Michael.

 

Funny you should mention that, Michael - I came across an Evangelische Kirche televised service yesterday, and they were using a brass choir for accompaniment. It sounded splendid.

 

Tony, André was, I believe, simply the greatest trumpeter the planet has ever seen. He's now past his "sell by" date, according to recent reviews, but at his peak, he was astonishing, playing with a tone, clarity and crispness others could only dream about. His technical facility made possible all sorts of adaptions of pieces originally written for other instruments, and he made many of these. Whether many are really suitable for the trumpet is debatable, and many critics have complained. André justified them by saying that, in earlier times, pieces written for one instrument were frequently adapted for another (for example, the more famous of the two Mozart flute concertos was originally written for the oboe - Wolfie didn't like the flute, so he rejigged an existing concerto rather than write a new one). However, the oboe and the flute aren't that far apart - whether a flute concerto is suitable for the more strident nature of the trumpet is a matter of taste.

 

P.S. Tony, the ones to look out for are the two great classical concertos, the Haydn (Franz Josef, that is ) and the Hummel, both written for the same man, Anton Weidinger, court trumpeter at the Esterhàzy court. Weidinger was a born tinkerer and he was always looking for ways to make his instrument more versatile (the natural instrument being very limited). He did this by adding extra tubing connected to the main tubing via keys. He could thus alter the length of the tubing and therefore the natural frequency of the instrument. The Haydn was written for Weidinger Mk.I

By the time Weidinger had improved the instrument, Johann Nepomuk Hummel was the composer. Mk.2 was more versatile, so the Hummel is more agile. It is probably the greatest of all trumpet concertos, especially the marvellous bubbly last movement.

Haydn's brother Michael wrote a two-movement concerto, featuring the reaching of some astoundingly high note on the fringes of possibility.

Of the baroque concertos, the Vivaldi two trumpet one is great, as are the various concertos written by Telemann. In a class of its own (for several reasons) is Bach's Brandenburg No.2, with its bizarre little F trumpet, the only occurrence of such an instrument in music (some musicologists regard it as a freak). However, it did inspire one Sir Paul Macartney to add the famous trumpet part in "Penny Lane" - he'd heard the Brandenburg and wanted a sound "just like that". Said sound was duly supplied by David Mason on a valved clarino trumpet.

 

I played the first two LPs of the box yesterday, and whilst I know absolutely nothing about classical trumpet (jazz is far more my area) it is blindingly obvious that this André bloke is something special. He has an incredibly crisp and pure tone to his playing. This box set will probably prove a good link point to finding other stuff.

I never knew that. I'll give it a play later. I notice No. 2 is on the André box so it will be interesting to compare it against the other versions I have.

Tony.

 

André was also a jazz fan, and there are two offerings worth looking out for. One exists only on vinyl (which'll please you, I know) and is called "Trompettissimo", matching André with a jazz combo of organ, bass and drums. It is a mixture of jazzed classicals and more popular stuff. The quality of the playing borders on the supernatural, especially in the rendering of the Badinerie from the Bach Orchestral Suite No.2 (you will know the tune, I promise you). The little French children's tune "J'ai du bon tabac" also gets a sensational rendering.

There was a follow-up LP called "Maurice André en toutes libertés avec...", which wasn't quite so good in its choice of pieces.

Then there is "Toot Suite", recorded with the Claude Bolling Trio. Bolling wrote several jazz suites for famous musicians and they're all eminently enjoyable (a flute one for Jean-Pierre Rampal, a cello one for Yo-Yo Ma, a guitar one memorably recorded in live concert by Angel Romero and the George Shearing Trio (I'm still looking for that one) and a couple of others). Some of the Bolling stuff exists on CD, but I have mine on vinyl.

For really spectacular playing, there's an Erato LP called "Kiosque" (the French word for bandstand), celebrating the old concerts in the park at the turn of the last century, when there would be showcase pieces for virtuoso soloists. These invariably feature "The Carnival of Venice" (which again you will know). The virtuousity on display in this one convinces you completely that some people are truly more equal than others.

 

P.S. George Martin's account of how the trumpet came to "Penny Lane":

"Following that [when I'm 64] came 'Penny Lane', which started life as a fairly simple song. But Paul decided he wanted a special sound on it, and one day, after he had been at a concert of Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, he said, 'There's a guy in them playing this fantastic high trumpet.'

'Yes,' I said, 'the piccolo trumpet, the Bach trumpet. Why?'

It's a great sound. Why can't we use it?'

'Sure we can,' I said, and at that he asked me to organise it for him. Now, the normal trumpet is in Bb. But there is also the D trumpet, which is what Bach mostly used, and the F trumpet. In this case, I decided to use a Bb piccolo trumpet, an octave above the normal. To play it I engaged David Mason, who was with the London Symphony Orchestra. It was a difficult session, for two reasons. First, that little trumpet is a devil to play in tune, because it isn't really in tune with itself, so that in order to achieve pure notes the player has to 'lip' each one.

Secondly, we had no music prepared. We just knew that we wanted little piping interjections. We had had experience of professional musicians saying: 'If the Beatles were real musicians, they'd know what they wanted us to play before we came into the studio.' Happily, David Mason wasn't like that at all. By then the Beatles were very big news anyway, and I think he was intrigued to be playing on one of their records, quite apart from being well paid for his trouble. As we came to each little section where we wanted the sound, Paul would think up the notes he wanted, and I would write them down for David. The result was unique, something which had never been done in rock music before, and it gave 'Penny Lane' a very distinct character."

 

Bit late on this one - but the Rutter Gloria is a good one too. Obviously the principal instrument is the choir, but the brass band and organ (and percussion) do give it a good bit of oomph. The Wallace Collection do an excellent job alongside Winchester Cathedral Organ on Hyperion CDA67259. In places it's also a good workout disc for the old hi-fi (gave those valves and Steve's speakers a bit of a shock at the Renaissance show ). Two other pieces use the same forces (Psalm 146 "Praise the Lord, O my soul" and the Te Deum - although that's a bit too "hymny" to really work for me); the others are either meltingly touching or saccharine sweet depending on your palate (I of course think them the former). Highly recommended.

It's also coupled with the reduced orchestration version (organ and percussion) of the Chichester Pslams by Clare College on the dirt cheap Regis RRC1003, which got a pretty good review on Building a Library the other day.