Download Trumpet player takes the breath away in premiering

Trumpet player takes the breath away in
premiering concerto named after him
Paul Hopwood
The Australian
11 May 2015
English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new trumpet concerto, Hakan, is named after the
esteemed Swedish trumpet player Hakan Hardenberger, who gave the world premiere on Friday, in
the presences of the composer, as part of this West Australian Symphony Orchestra concert. As well
as being widely regarded as the world’s leading classical trumpet soloist, Hardenberger has an
astounding record of commissioning and performing contemporary music. Hakan is in fact the second
trumpet concerto that Turnage has written for him, following the highly successful From the Wreckage
of 2004.
Hakan is longer, darker and more intense than its older sibling. In the first movement, coloured
primarily by drums and brass, Turnage spins musical material from two small melodic fragments, the
first widely spaced and angular, the second chromatic and rhythmically unstable. The interaction
between these ideas, which mutate, expand, and merge into the contrapuntal orchestral
accompaniment, makes for fascinating listening.
The oppressive mood, stemming from Turnage’s obsessive focus on motivic development and static
textures, lifts somewhat in the second movement. The composer’s lifelong engagement with
American music is evident here, a spacious and darkly atmospheric arietta in which the solo line owes
th
much to the phrasing of mid-20 century jazz. The final movement is a set of variations, and again the
principal interest lies in the intense, somewhat dry exploration of the scurrying chromatic theme.
Unlike the other works on the program by Vaughan Williams and Sibelius, Hakan eschews lyricism. It
offers no easy path the musical beauty. Instead it sounds gritty, urban and thoroughly modern.
Hardenberger’s performance was essentially beyond criticism. Technically faultless, his tone was
brilliant when required, but there was also little of the supple breathiness one might expect from a jazz
soloist, which brought warmth and vulnerability. The tremendously demanding solo part required, at
times, frighteningly fast wide leaps, intensely chromatic scurrying, and the most delicate, flute-like
high melodies. All challenges were met with scarcely believable aplomb.
Conductor Baldur Bronniman was admirably clear and convincing in his reading of Turnage’s new
work. His clarity and rhythmic focus also served Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
particularly well, and both here and in Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela he conjured a lean and unified
response from the strings. Leanne Glover’s cor anglais solo in the Swan was every bit as beautiful as
the music demanded. Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony was, perhaps, less successful. The opening
movement seemed a little too detached and austere, and the performance lacked a little momentum
as a result.
Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony
8 & 9 May
Perth Concert Hall