The latest in the Performer’s Platform series organised by St James’s Cavalier featured trumpeter Carlos Borg and experienced pianist Tricia Dawn Williams.
Known for her predilection for modern and contemporary music, both as soloist and accompanist, it need not take a look at the programme to know what kind of music to expect.
Indeed, the first work was Hindemith’s Sonata for trumpet and piano (1938). It is a very popular piece, with trumpeters worth their salt. Malta’s flourishing band clubs are the basic source of most of our best brass and woodwind players, and no less Borg, who was nurtured at St Michael’s Band Club of Żabbar and with which he is still deeply involved.
The sonata, in the traditional three-movement, is different in content. The initial Mit Kraft (With strength) saw exactly that, with the trumpeter’s assertive establishing of a powerful presence, egged on by the piano’s energetic driving force.
The beginning is very martial and leads to a very turbulent and well-handled section here. Rather than the expected slow middle movement, Hindemith continues underlying the movement with tension, even if in this Mäßig bewegt there is a certain amount of lighter playfulness juxtaposed with march-like elements from the previous movement.
There were some very slight deviations from the ideal pitch in some passages, well remedied by the time Trauermusik concluded the work. The innate sadness of this finale was pronounced and much in contrast with the rest of the work which the trumpet’s very long and beautifully sustained concluding note.
In its few minutes’ duration, Bloch’s Proclamation sees no less than six or seven changes of tempi. Originally he wrote it for trumpet and orchestra. In the arrangement for piano the trumpet, of course, retains supremacy, with the piano providing the necessary solid backing which was always forthcoming.
The work is very declamatory, of course, with a decisively assertive and rather energetic opening allegro gradually giving way to a slowly diminishing quest for calmer if deeper waters, with an increase in the lyrical aspects of the music.
By contrast, the showpiece that is Herbert Clarke’s The Debutante (Caprice Brilliant), the oldest piece in the concert (1917) was a crescendo of technical prowess shared to some extent by the piano, as well in this arrangement from the original with brass band.
It reminds one very much of the bel canto fantasias and arrangements of opera arias, a device so popular in the 19th century.
These always call for a lot of virtuosity on the part of the main protagonist, not lacking here, and in which some very lyrical passages did not lack either. It ended the recital with a general touch of admirable accomplishment.