Matilda Lloyd & Richard Gowers
Chandos Recordings: CHA 20345
Over recent years trumpet soloist Matilda Lloyd has expertly negotiated the perilous margins between critical exploration and listener-friendly presentation with an impressive sense of musical self-confidence.
Her previous Chandos releases, ‘Resonance’ which featured works by Rachmaninoff, Schonberger, Weinberg and Goedicke, and ‘Casta Diva’ which showcased popular operatic arias, gained wide-ranging acclaim. They are now followed 'Fantasia' - a fusion of the familiar and intriguing which offers an engaging extension of both her style and substance.
Accomplished
Baroque transcriptions are counter-balanced by a quartet of world premieres of commissioned contemporary works, with Lloyd taking the opportunity to display versatility on five different pitched trumpets (Bb to piccolo) and flugel horn.
The playing of both soloists has an accomplished, polished sheen of awareness - perhaps a little too much where the careful calibration of dynamics and tempo seem almost self-consciously reined in.
The playing of both soloists has an accomplished, polished sheen of awareness - perhaps a little too much where the careful calibration of dynamics and tempo seem almost self-consciously reined in.
Too safe
Comparisons to the great Maurice Andre and the many Baroque performances he undertook with organ accompaniment would be unfair. However, the lack of immediacy to the interplay and crystal vibrancy is obvious, although arguably more as a result of the recording acoustic of Waltham Abbey.
It offers a glorious resonance yet hazardous connective link, even between sympathetic performers of joint purpose. It makes for a curious approach that at times seems a little too safe in its intentions.
The Bach bookends of the famous ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’ and the ‘Fantasia’ title track, suffer most – neither sounding integrated in texture or lineal development, despite the quality of the individual contributions.
Persuasive
It is much more persuasive however with the Krebs ‘Fantasia’, Bach’s ‘Adagio’, the Pachelbel ‘Fugue’ and Martini’s triptych ‘Sonata al’ Postcommunio’, the delicacy of the playing in the latter in particular echoing the original solo instrumentation.
The quartet of world premieres are much more successful, although all are cut from an elegiac cloth patterned by warm textures and lyrical dispositions.
The quartet of world premieres are much more successful, although all are cut from an elegiac cloth patterned by warm textures and lyrical dispositions.
Roxanna Panufnik’s ‘Echo’ has a poetic, elusiveness, Richard Barnard’s ‘At the Border of Sleep’, an untethered feel of drifting into the arms of Morpheus. There is also much to be drawn into with Deborah Pritchard’s ‘Light Enkindled’, also full of lost memories, muted colours and transient movement, whilst Owain Park’s ‘Warm, hazy rain’ has a bluesy flugel timbre that circulates in gentle progression.
Iwan Fox
To purchase:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9786094--fantasia-works-for-trumpet-organ
Play list:
1-2. Toccata and Fugue, BWV 565 (Bach arr. William Foster)
3. Echo (Roxanna Panufnik)
4-5. Fantasia, WV 604 & WV 601 (Krebs trans. Matilda Lloyd)
6. At the Borders of Sleep (Richard Barnard)
7. Fugue, P 131 (Pachelbel arr. Richard Gowers)
8. Adagio, BWV 564 (Bach arr. Richard Gowers)
9. Light Enkindled (Deborah Pritchard)
10-13. Sonata al’ Postcommunio (Martini trans & arr. Marie-Claire Alain)
14. Warm, hazy rain (Owain Park)
15. Fantasia, BWV 562 (Bach arr. Richard Gowers)
