Recording of the Week, Baroque Concertos from Alison Balsom

A change of direction from her 2022 American-focused album Quiet City, Alison Balsom’s latest release Baroque Concertos with Trevor Pinnock and Pinnock’s Players revisits the territory - though not the repertoire - of Sound the Trumpet and Italian Concertos from the 2010s. A selection of transcriptions of violin and oboe concertos by Simon Wright take us from Rome, via Bologna and Venice, to wind up over the Alps in Frankfurt - stopping off to take in those regional styles and flavours of composition along the way. 

Unlike Sound the Trumpet - Balsom’s first all-natural trumpet recording - and the standard trumpet that she used on Italian Concertos, here she’s getting in touch with her inner Maurice André, whom she cites as an influence both on this album’s conception and on herself as a musician generally. Partly inspired by his pioneering recordings from the 1960s and 70s, she plays on a Baroque-pitch piccolo trumpet - a compromise between strict authenticity and musical ambition that provides what she describes as the ‘opportunity to perform much more chromatic and virtuosic music’, and indeed opens up access to huge swathes of violinists’ and oboists’ repertoire.

Vivaldi’s RV316a dives straight in with a bracing G minor. Although it’s rarely obvious that these works are anything other than authentic trumpet concertos, a clue pops out here and there, and one of the first is Balsom’s very impressive rendition of violin tremolos - adding effortless double-tonguing to her light tone and easygoing command of the higher register. In the later concertos she also has the opportunity to show off her agility, leaping from high to low as easily as a violinist changing strings.

Sandwiched between two helpings of Vivaldi’s carefree ebullience, fellow Venetian Albinoni’s D minor oboe concerto has a grandiose swagger - particularly in its opening movement - that gives a pleasing contrast and shows that even within one city’s orbit, styles and tastes were highly varied. Its slow movement is a wistful gem and, for me at least, one of the highlights of the album.

Although there certainly are moments - particularly in the Albinoni - where some of the high legato writing faintly echoes the sonority of the oboe, and a few violin ‘fingerprints’ as I mentioned earlier, nevertheless these adaptations all sound essentially native to the trumpet. I was almost reluctant to reveal here which concertos had been adapted from which instrument (the track-listing, indeed, coyly omits this information!), leaving it as a challenge for the readers - it’s testament to Simon Wright’s craft as an arranger and Balsom’s ability to make the music live that this doesn’t feel like an album of transcriptions. 

While it is of course Balsom’s album, it would be remiss of me not to call attention to some delightfully nimble passages on the organ from Tom Foster in that opening Vivaldi concerto, as well as from violinist Daniel Sepec at several points on the album. Indeed Trevor Pinnock’s hand-picked band of musicians excel throughout.

The mood shifts when we come to Telemann’s F minor concerto - wary as I am of the ‘sunny Italians and dour Germans’ trope in Baroque music, there’s certainly something more sober about Telemann’s writing at times which, in this setting, is strangely invigorating and welcome, and I don’t think can just be ascribed to its darker key. This being one of the two concertos on the album that clock in at under eight minutes in duration, I just wish there had been more of it! The playful final Vivace has an almost Haydn-esque sense of fun that somehow perfectly sets up the grand finale from Handel; here you can really sense Balsom’s enjoyment in the numerous stratospheric top Ds that pepper the music, and in the cut and thrust of her interaction with the ripieno. 

Purists may of course object, but I think the decision to go hunting for concertos from the violin and oboe repertoire is amply justified. Baroque Concertos is a wide-ranging collection that shows not only Balsom’s incredible technical command of her instrument but also her breadth of imagination in selecting a combination of more familiar concertos and those that might be less frequently heard. Maurice André would surely be proud of the progress that’s been made since his own trailblazing albums all those years ago.