VLADIMIR PESKIN, COMPLETE TRUMPET MUSIC (2015)
A milestone in the classical trumpet world, Giuliano Sommerhalder’s most recent album showcases the complete works by Russian pianist and composer, Vladmir Peskin (1906-1988). Romantic music filled with emotions, passion and fire, for a 75-minute journey through Russia’s great expressive universe.
When Giuliano Sommerhalder recorded Vladimir Peskin’s Concerto No. 1 on CD in 2008, the trumpet world witnessed a boom in performances of that piece and interest in Peskin’s music, after it had almost been forgotten despite the great recordings by the Russian trumpet legend Timofei Dokshizer, to whom many of these works are dedicated.
To follow the success of that first recording, Giuliano Sommerhalder now recorded Peskin’s complete works for trumpet for the first time, accompanied by Polish piano virtuoso Kasia Wieczorek.
A true discovery, not only for trumpet lovers but for all those who have been waiting for some trumpet repertoire as good as Rachmaninov or Scriabin to show up.
AMILCARE PONCHIELLI, CONCERTOS (2011)
This CD features the Concertos for wind instruments by Italian composer Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886). Filled with the great themes and emotions of the Italian Opera tradition in the 19th Century, and two World Premieres.
With Simone Sommerhalder, oboe, and Roland Fröscher, euphonium.
At the beginning of April 2011 the latest CD with Giuliano Sommerhalder was released by the label MDG (Dabringhaus und Grimm), featuring Concertos for wind instruments by the great Italian composer, Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886), the teacher of Puccini and Mascagni. Apart from the three Trumpet Concerti (two of which are World Premiere Recordings in the symphonic version) performed by Giuliano Sommerhalder, it also includes the Oboe Capriccio, performed by Giuliano’s brother Simone, as well as the Euphonium Concerto, performed by Swiss virtuoso Roland Fröscher. Five extremely demanding pieces, a true discovery, accompanied by the Mecklenburgische Staastkapelle Schwerin and conducted by Matthias Foremny.
ROMANTIC VIRTUOSITY (2008)
In 1997, at the age of twelve, Giuliano Sommerhalder travelled from his mountain village of Astano in Ticino to Moscow to take part in the International Trumpet Competition of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He won it, but set even greater store by the fact that the “living legends” among Russian trumpeters heard him and offered him their friendship. Timofei Dokshizer, Venyamin Margolin, Yury Usov and others saw in him a potential champion of their great tradition.
Late night discussions around kitchen tables in Moscow caused an ambitious plan to form in the boy’s mind. Eleven years later, Giuliano Sommerhalder relaized that ambition and recorded the most importyant and most masterly of the few original trumpet concertos of the late and neo-Romantic eras in their lost orchestral versions
In between, he spent many long years searching for scores and doing research into composers like Vasily Brandt (1869-1923) and Oskar Böhme (1870-1938). Both of these trumpet virtuosos had left Germany for a Russia still ruled by a tsar, only to become enmeshed in the wheels of history in the Stalin era. They left to posterity concertos of almost violinistic virtuosity for their instrument. If Sergey Rakhmaninov had written a trumpet concerto, it would surely sound like the one by Vladimir Peskin (1906-1988), whose biography is hardly less eventful. The Concert Fantasy by the Riemann pupil Gustav Cords (1870-1951) was the showpiece of German trumpet soloists right into the 1950s.
All these works (together with three bravura pieces for the cornet) are now being released on CD. With only one exception, they are all world premiere recordings and prove that beyond laborious transcriptions and musical warhorses in the manner of the Carnival of Venice, interesting and extremely virtuosic Romantic original works for the trumpet do exist.
JOHANN FRIEDRICH FASCH: CONCERTI & OUVERTURES
Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758), Kapellmeister at the court of Zerbst in Saxony, is generally regarded as one of the most significant contemporaries of Bach, who held him in high esteem.
The present recording by the Basle Chamber Orchestra contains some of Fasch’s most brilliant and sumptuous works, including a concerto for violin, three trumpets and orchestra, to orchestral suites and the virtuosic D-major trumpet concerto, performed on the valveless baroque trumpet by Giuliano Sommerhalder.
GERSHWIN/BOLLANI/CHAILLY: RHAPSODY IN BLUE & CONCERTO IN F
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under the baton of Riccardo Chailly and the great Italian jazz pianist Stefano Bollani present their new CD with works by George Gershwin. Among others, the famous Rhapsody in Blue and the Piano Concerto in F.
J.S. BACH CHRISTMAS ORATORIO
The Gewandhaus Orchestra’s recording of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio
DECCA’s release of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s new recording of the Christmas Oratorio under the baton of Riccardo Chailly. Listen to Giuliano Sommerhalder playing the principal trumpet part.
J.S. BACH BRANDENBURG CONCERTI
The Gewandhaus Orchestra’s recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti
DECCA’s release of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s recording of the Christmas Oratorio under the baton of Riccardo Chailly. Listen to Giuliano Sommerhalder playing the trumpet part in the 2nd Brandenburg Concerto.
