Fanfare Alone

The solo trumpet is always alone. With heroic fanfare calls and contemplative, melancholy lyricism, the trumpet – after sound and silence, is again – alone.

Fanfare Alone is a collection of fanfares and solo pieces performed on the Schilke family of instruments, and written by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries – Christopher Buchenholz, Ornette Coleman, Brian Fennelly, Margi Griebling-Haigh, Alejandro Guarello, John Hearne, Kevin Johnson, Ryan Karr, Otto Ketting, David Loeb, Clint Needham, Philip deOliveira, Robert Pound, Morgan Powell, Ilana Rainero-deHaan, Jeffrey Rathbun, Paul Rudy, Jack Sutte and Stefan Wolpe.

“…Sutte has such a warm and beautiful tone and such complete security in the wildest passages…”

— Barry Kilpatrick, American Record Guide

TRACK LIST – DISC ONE

Click a track title to read its liner notes, or

Set One

Set Two

1. Fanfare (2011) [1:24]

2. Alone (1972) [6:14]
3. Fanfare (2011) [2:09]

4. Distant Call (2013) [2:06]
5. Clare Fanfare (2013) [2:52]
6-7. Solo Piece for Trumpet (1966)
6. Graceful, talking [1:45]

7. Not too big, intimate [1:00]

8. Salient Flourishes (2013) [2:20]

 

10-12. Three Ditties (2013)
Three Ditties is a three-movement work for solo trumpet based on musical cryptograms that also serve as the title for each movement: 1. Egg(s), 2. Bead(s), 3. Eff(anfare). The letters in these titles make up all notes used in each movement (only Es and Gs used in the first movement, etc.). Three Ditties was written for trumpeter Jack Sutte.
10. Egg(s) [1:02]

11. Bread(s) [1:22]

12. Eff(anfare) [2:05]

13. The Flamboyant Frenchman (2013) [2:14]

 

Total Time: 37:16

TRACK LIST – DISC TWO

Set Three

Set Four

 

1. Jacked! (2013) [3:04]
2-3. Music for Trumpet (2000)

Lyricism and reflection inform these two movements for solo trumpet, studies in lyricism and lyric form. Like lyric poetry, lyric forms in music rely on regular recurrence. In poetry the recurrence is often in the form of rhymes, end or internal. In music it is simply the return of the same or similar musical
materials (a motive, a phrase, or a melody). Each of these movements employs refrains in different ways.

The melody of the first movement, “differing rivers,” returns time and again to the same two-note refrain via the same series of pitches. But each of the paths through that series begins on a different pitch and each path differs rhythmically.
One might compare the experience with crossing a river. An ancient philosopher said that you can never enter the same river twice. If our series of pitches mirrors a river, the constancy of the two-note refrain suggests that we always arrive at the same far bank. Our varying paths across it represent the difference in the river each time we cross it. To a certain degree this suggests variations on our musical subject, but this is variation without embellishment, without the insertion of different pitches among the original ones. In a slightly contrasting middle section, another new musical subject is similarly employed. The subject of the middle section becomes fastened to the initial melody to form elongated, elaborate, and expansive lines in the final section, not unlike the conjoining of two tributaries.

The verse-refrain pattern informs the second movement, “sky diapason,” as well, but the verses and refrains share materials and transform one another throughout the piece. One may hear segments of the opening phrase recur in lower registers, in different rhythms, louder or softer. The new version of the
segment may in turn be combined with a different segment, yielding new materials occurring later. One can distinguish verses from refrains simply by the nature of articulation; the verses are legato, smooth, connected while the refrains
comprise accented, short notes. Otherwise, both verses and refrains share materials and inform each other’s evolution.
Another aspect of lyricism is explored in this composition; the quality of the lines and of the music in general are intended to suggest ease and intimacy, a personal quality. In the case of the second movement, this apparent ease and gentility belie the vast range over which the trumpet must stretch the phrases, which is technically very difficult. Almost every phrase explores either the high extreme of the range or the low (and occasionally both), but demands a dignified,
stately quality at all times.

Musical reflection often involves the inversion of musical materials against one another: one melody rises in a certain pattern; another descends in the same pattern. That obviously compares to visual reflections. But here, the musical reflections also compare with the extra-musical, cognitive, even emotional act of reflection, the act of reconsidering events, objects, and/or people from different perspectives, removed in time, emotional state, physical condition, etc.

Robert Pound, November 2000 (rev. 2020)

www.robertwpound.com

 

2. differing river [6:07]

3. sky diapason [5:19]

4-6. Modern Lore (2013)
4. Freely [2:01]

5. March Fanfare [1:43]

6. Aftersong [1:17]

7. The Seventh Trumpet (2013) [4:12]
8. Fanfare (2011-13) [2:36]

 

10. Solitario V (1990) [8:02]
11-13. Tre Romanze (1996)

My purpose in writing the Tre Romanze was to create a piece that would have contrasts both within and between movements, and to do so in a lyrical manner. While the piece is far from easy, it does not indulge in technical display nor does it use any extended techniques. The word “Romanza” in this context goes back to the French ‘roman’ (novel) to suggest an unspecified narrative. – David Loeb

www.davidloebmusic.com

11. Lento

12. Allegro

13. Moderato-Allegro

14. RE: Sousa (2013) [2:08]

 

 

Total Time: 48:29

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