Discover instruments: The Baroque Trumpet
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Interesting - I love these Classic FM vids and features.
My mum used to listen to the channel exclusively for about 8 hours a day, pretty much every day for 5 years.
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I believe the second Brandenburg was written specifically to highlight virtuoso trumpet playing.
And I always liked the story of the serendipity of someone accidental bending dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet by falling on it, and he liked the sound so much he had them made especially for him.
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@bachophile said in Discover instruments: The Baroque Trumpet:
I believe the second Brandenburg was written specifically to highlight virtuoso trumpet playing.
Wiki:
The trumpet part is still considered one of the most difficult in the entire repertoire, and was originally written for a clarino specialist, almost certainly the court trumpeter in Köthen, Johann Ludwig Schreiber.[13] After clarino skills were lost in the eighteenth century and before the rise of the historically informed performance movement of the late twentieth century, the part was usually played on the valved trumpet sometimes on a modern F trumpet, a French Horn, or even a Bb Piccolo Trumpet.
The clarino does not play in the second movement, as is common practice in baroque era concerti. This is due to its construction, which allows it to play only in major keys. Because concerti often move to a minor key in the second movement, concerti that include the instrument in their first movement and are from the period before the valved trumpet was commonly used usually exclude the trumpet from the second movement.
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Yes, thanks @George-K Very neat video and history lesson
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I remember a lecture about how The Haydn trumpet concerto was revolutionary when it was first performed.
Apparently, it was a vehicle to demonstrate the capabilities of the new, valved, trumpet. When I first heard the lecture, I thought that it was an interesting aside. However with the understanding that I have now of the limitations of the baroque trumpet, it gives me a new appreciation for what Haydn was able to do.
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Always amazing how composers are able to write music for instruments they don’t play. Mozart’s clarinet concertos come to mind, as do Beethoven’s violin concerto.
Although obviously there are composers who can play multiple instruments (think Paul McCartney has played lead guitar, rhythm, guitar , keyboards , and even drums when Ringo stepped out for a while)
I do remember reading somewhere though that sometimes Bach liked to leave the harpsichord playing to someone else and play viola de gamba in chamber music to get a better feel for the basso and rhythm and harmonies of music he wrote. Let someone else play the melodies. He wanted to be in the rhythm section.
Geniuses
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@bachophile said in Discover instruments: The Baroque Trumpet:
Always amazing how composers are able to write music for instruments they don’t play
There's a story about the Stravinsky violin concerto.
Willy Strecker of B. Schotts Söhne, Stravinsky's music publisher at the time (and also a friend of Dushkin's), asked Stravinsky to compose a concerto for Dushkin. Though Stravinsky was reluctant, citing unfamiliarity with the instrument, Strecker assured the composer that Dushkin would consult about technical matters. Stravinsky noted in his autobiography that Dushkin's availability for such advice was a factor in his undertaking the Violin Concerto. He also sought the opinion of composer and violist Paul Hindemith, who allayed Stravinsky's fears, suggesting that his unfamiliarity with the instrument might help him come up with new possibilities. Stravinsky met with Dushkin at Strecker's residence in Wiesbaden and decided to go ahead.
Early in the compositional process, Stravinsky devised a chord which stretches from D4 to E5 to A6. One day while he and Dushkin were having lunch in a Paris restaurant, he sketched the chord on a napkin for the violinist, who thought the chord unplayable, to Stravinsky's disappointment. On returning home, however, Dushkin tried it out on his violin and was surprised to discover it was actually quite easy to play. He immediately telephoned Stravinsky to say that it could be played after all. The composer later referred to this chord as his "passport to the Concerto"
The "passport chord" is heard at the beginning of every movement, each time in a different configuration.
