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| GRUBER & SCHWERTSIK
H. K. GRUBER (b. 1943)
3 Mob Pieces,
Busking (2007) BIS-CD-1884 A trumpet showcase of music by the ‘Third Viennese School’ friends and collaborators H K Gruber and Kurt Schwertsik, who reacted against Darmstadt serialism. Rhythmic, witty and highly enjoyable, this was a welcome disc for the days after Christmas. Recommended. Peter Grahame Woolf
DG 20/21 00289 477 6150
This is a veritable feast for lovers of the trumpet family (all registers represented, and including cow horn and flugelhorn) but the dishes are rich and best taken separately, with substantial breaks between them. There is a strong BBC/Proms connection. Gruber's Proms commission (BBCSO, 1999) pits Hardenberger's versatility with different instruments against a large orchestra. Its finale evokes the mood of the '30s Astaire/Rogers films. Turnage's introspective concerto, which reached the Proms in 2005, is a darker and serious exploration of life's difficulties, and develops from meditation to raucous ragtime, its coda ending with piccolo trumpet striving for the heights. It has far more than extrovert brilliance to offer, allows the spontaneity of improvisation. Composer/conductor Peter Eötvös surrounds Hardenberger's Bb trumpet with an alluring orchestral background. Recording is of demonstration quality.
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