Monday, September 12, 2011

SOLO - Marco Pierobon Trumpet

Personal and Powerful

I have always made it a policy in my blogs to avoid writing reviews and in the last five years or so, since I started the blogs, I have only written two, one for trumpet and one for ophiclide; I have never written one for tuba and probably never will.

In the past few years there has been a surge in the number of solo trumpet CDs released and many of them have been wonderful, but in most cases a piece of the puzzle has been missing; in the new CD, SOLO, with Italian trumpet player Marco Pierobon, the puzzle is complete. Marco Pierobon has the power of Bud Herseth, the 19th century awareness of Timofei Dokshizer, the technical freedom of Rafael Mandez and the great lead player skill of Harry James. But there is more!

In this CD we can listen to an extraordinary assortment of repertoire:
Alexander Arutiunian: Trumpet Concerto in Ab Major
Oskar Böhme: Trumpet Concerto, transcribed for winds by Goeffery Bergler
James Curnow: Concertpiece
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, arranged by Timofei Dokshizer
Alexander Goedicke: Concert Study
Michele Mangani: Theme for Trumpet (written for Macro Pierobon)
Allen Vizzutti: American Jazz Suite.

All of these great pieces can certainly stand-alone, but Marco’s versatility in these performances is absolutely amazing; quite simply, all the various styles represented are exactly right. But there is still one more thing that needs to be pointed out: Marco is Italian and as well the comparisons with the great trumpet players mentioned above, he has that visceral passionate musicality that we associate with Luciano Pavarotti. For example, every time I listen to the THEME FOR TRUMPET by Michele Mangani it makes the hairs on my arms stand up.

By the way Michele Mangani is the conductor of the Orchestra di Fiati delle Marche (Marche Wind Orchestra), which is the very able band accompanying this album.

In all fairness I have to disclose Marco was one of my students in the mid 90s when I was working with the brass of the Italian Youth Orchestra at the Fiesole Scuola di Musica in Toscana. I’m sure I haven’t allowed that association to influence this review. Please listen to this remarkable CD and judge for yourself.

Tokyo, September 11, 2011

Bonus - take a look at this short video for an insight into Marco Pierobon's playing (watch all of it) http://youtu.be/EFAdbrejDBc