Music for Trumpet: Brandt & Böhme

During the early twentieth century Oskar Böhme and Vassily Brandt stood for the high educational level of German musicians in the leading orchestras of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The two solo trumpeters were welcome teachers at the Russian conservatories and also succeeded in making names for themselves with their own compositions. Wolfgang Bauer and his ensemble colleagues have recorded some of their works with the pianist Oliver Triendl.

A critic said of Vassily (Willy) Brandt, “Nobody is like him in power, beauty, and lyric-dramatic playing.” Brandt was such a virtuoso master on his instrument that he immediately received a post in Moscow’s Bolshoi Orchestra. His études belong to the standard repertoire of each and every trumpeter, and his Country Pictures fascinatingly blend Russian folk melodies and the German trumpet quartet tradition.

During his three decades in St. Petersburg Oskar Böhme was the principal trumpeter of the Royal Court Opera and a teacher and composer who performed breakneck virtuoso pieces in his concerts and wrote easy-to-play character pieces that quickly gained popularity. The Wind Sextet recorded here also demonstrates his mastery of chamber-musical form.

Wolfgang Bauer, one of the world’s leading trumpeters, is distinguished by his effortlessly supple tone. The ensemble founded by him is no less ambitious than Bauer himself, whose recordings of the concertos of Joseph and Michael Haydn and Johann Christian and Johann Wilhelm Hertel have brought him outstanding international reviews and this year’s Echo-Klassik prize.