ANTON GRČAR - TROBENTA

Classical and Modern Music

Format: CD

Code: 114472

EAN: 3838898114472

The release celebrates the high jubilee of the acclaimed trumpet player and professor Anton Grčar. The CD release of the vinyl record from 1978.

Similarly to other wind and brass instruments, where in the sixties and seventies a number of top performers have appeared, in the last decade or so the standard of trumpet playing, in Slovenia and elsewhere in Yugoslavia, has been set by the soloist Anton Grčar: inherited musical dispositions, enriched by a virtuoso technique, have at an early date enabled him to become first trumpeter of the Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra and to acquire a teaching post at the Music Academy; he was thus greeted with recognitions and subsequently encouraged – in one of the most tricky field of chamber performing – to found the Slovene Philharmonic Brass Quintet a few years ago.
In the Baroque era the trumpet was a highly esteemed instrument. However, in comparison with string and wind instruments only a relatively small number of concertos for trumpet have survived. The reasons are at least twofold. On the one hand, the trumpet was a domain of the trumpeters' guilds which rendered their services to the sovereign. On the other, at that time they still lacked the valves which were later on to enable chromatic playing also in the lower octaves.
Tartini's Concerto in D major, the numerous performances of which – at home and abroad – have won Grčar the Prešern Foundation Prize this year (1978), is thus most likely a reconstructed transcription. In spite of that one can already admire the mastery of performed nuances that proceed from the typical sequence of movements: the tripartite Allegro, the melodious Andante and the charmingly brisk rondo.
Haydn's Concerto in E flat major, at the same time the composer's very last concerto (1976, Hob. VII e:1), reflects all the performing advantages due to the just mentioned improvements made by the Vienna court trumpeter Anton Weidinger. The trumpet became so the orchestra's equal, especially in the two outer movements: masterly brilliant in the Allegro and enthusiastically gay in the concluding finale.
The French composer Henri Tomasi dedicated one of his many attractive concertos to the trumpet (1948). The commencing Allegro floats somewhere between Debussy and Gershwin only to ascend the succulent sound of a musical in the Nocturne and the agitated city bustle of the Finale. It could be a kind of »A Frenchman in Paris«, with a trumpet, of course!
Scherzo-like playfulness in a much more contemporary and at the same time aleatoric language is present in Ivo Petrić's Burlesque pour les temps passés (1969), which rounds off the portrait of Anton Grčar's performing abilities.

TRACKS

GIUSEPPE TARTINI
Concerto in D major
Allegro (listen!)
Andante
Allegro grazioso
SIMFONIČNI ORKESTER SLOVENSKE FILHARMONIJE
conductor RALF WEIKERT
recorded – 1977

JOSEPH HAYDN
Concerto in E flat major (Hob. VII e:1)
Allegro
Andante cantabile
Finale – Allegro
SIMFONIČNI ORKESTER RTV SLOVENIJA
conductor SAMO HUBAD
recorded – 1975

HENRI TOMASI
Trumpet Concerto
Allegro
Nocturno – Andantino
Finale – Giocoso – Allegro
SIMFONIČNI ORKESTER RTV SLOVENIJA
conductor SAMO HUBAD
recorded – 1973

IVO PETRIĆ
Burlesque pour les temps passés
Burlesque pour les temps passés
SIMFONIČNI ORKESTER RTV SLOVENIJA
conductor SAMO HUBAD
recorded – 1970