It seems fitting to begin my debut album with a compositional debut. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Sonata for Trumpet and Piano was not only his first major work, but also the first serious avant-garde sonata written for this combination of instruments. Composed in reaction to the contemporary British music of Britten and his peers, Maxwell Davies’ Sonata is an impressive showpiece for the D Trumpet in dialogue with the piano. The work is composed in three movements: the first is based around a complicated twelve-tone system, the second has a pleading melody that becomes increasingly intense before fading away into the playful, but simultaneously sinister, third movement. Premiered in 1955 by Elgar Howarth and John Ogdon, the Sonata was rejected by the Society for the Promotion of New Music for its aggression and daring musical language, but has now cemented itself as a unique and important work in the trumpet repertoire.
Composed only six years earlier, the Sarabande et Finale by Raymond Gallois Montbrun represents the characteristic 20th Century ‘French school’ of trumpet playing. Montbrun contrasts the old and the new by using the regular triple metre time from the classic Sarabande, a slow courtly dance that became hugely popular in 17th-century France, but composing a melodic line that deviates from this pattern. The Finale sparkles with fast semiquavers and builds up to an extraordinary cascading cadenza for solo trumpet before finishing with a blistering Vivo.
Alex Woolf’s Direct Message brings us into the 21st Century. Commissioned for this album, Woolf takes inspiration from the traditional role of the trumpet in music, religion and myth as a messenger, but adds a modern twist. He plays with the idea of an online ‘instant-messaging’ exchange by imagining the trumpet and piano as two characters with different approaches to their virtual interaction. While the trumpet is cautious and hesitant at first and struggles to get its message across, seeming to edit its message while delivering it, the piano interjects confidently with its own ideas. The trumpet keeps attempting to return to its original message, presented as a solo in the opening bars, and, after a series of diversions, finally manages to make its voice heard.
Légende, written by Romanian composer Georges Enescu, is one of the great masterpieces for trumpet and piano. Having studied at the Paris Conservatoire at the turn of the 20th Century, Enescu composed this work in 1906 for the annual trumpet competition at the Conservatoire and dedicated it to Merri Franquin, the Head of the Trumpet Department. Légende shows off both the lyrical and technical aspects of trumpet playing in a post-impressionistic style, influenced by the tone colours and harmonies of Debussy and his contemporaries. This is particularly evident in the middle section of the work, which uses chromaticism and whole-tone figurations. This outstanding work, boasting especially fine and idiomatic piano writing, is framed by a beautiful lyrical melody which marks the climax with a triumphant iteration in a higher register and closes the work with a nostalgic, distant effect created through the use of the cup mute.
Exploring themes of memory and human identity, Deborah Pritchard’s Seven Halts on the Somme is a set of seven short movements written in response to a series of paintings by artist Hughie O’Donoghue. The paintings depict the seven stopping points for the British Army along the Somme during the First World War and Pritchard’s synaesthetic musical response relates directly to the colours used. The work is also written in memory of Pritchard’s father, further heightening the emotional depth of the music. This is particularly evident in the first and last movements in which the solo trumpet performs into the opened piano lid while the sustaining pedal is held. This extraordinary technique gives the work a haunting quality by allowing the piano strings to vibrate and create an extended echo of the music, evoking the distant calls of the trumpet in battle. Premiered in 2014 by Simon Desbruslais and Clare Hammond, it is particularly special to be making the first recording of this work for the centenary celebration of the end of the First World War in 2018.
Sangre Viva, by British composer Giles Swayne, explores a more outlandish side to the trumpet. Composed in 2003, the introductory section features many unusual extended techniques such as flutter tonguing, double-pedal notes and tongue slaps. This work was inspired by a lecture given by Federico García Lorca in 1930 entitled ‘Theory and Function of the Duende’. In the Andalusian language, the ‘duende’ is the extra-musical spirit that a particular musician injects into the performance. This is the ‘Sangre Viva’, the ‘living blood’ in a performer that elevates the music beyond the notes and generates an energetic, magical and unique outcome. The main section of the first movement embodies this idea with its jazzy feel that is brought to life by the lively exchange between the trumpet and piano.
The second movement is a reflection on a poem entitled ‘Sueño’ (‘Dream’) written by García Lorca on the theme of time, eternity and oblivion. The relentless left hand of the piano ticks like a clock, over the top of which floats a lyrical melody that is both tied to the strict rhythm of the piano, but also transcends it with freedom and rubato. Later in the movement, the trumpet and piano share intertwining melodies and the work ends with an echo of the opening of the first movement.
Jacques Castérède’s Sonatine is a tour de force for trumpet and piano. Written for the annual competition for trumpet students at the Paris Conservatoire in 1953, the three movements encompass all the different facets of trumpet playing. The opening movement features angular melodies and large intervals with a harmonic language similar to that of Prokofiev or Shostakovich. By contrast, the middle movement presents pure beauty in the form of a very simple lyrical melody, enhanced by the use of a soft cup mute. The Finale is a lively Rondo with cheeky interplay between the two instruments reminiscent of a game of cat and mouse, and the work ends with a flourish!

© Matilda Lloyd