Suona la Tromba: About the Program
By Dominic Favia
A Note About the Music
Harken back to late 17th-century Italy with virtuosic music for the trumpet. For centuries, the trumpet has been an instrument of war and a symbol of political power. The warring Italians lead the charge in enriching the role of the trumpet to also be a voice of beauty and artistic expression amidst the flourishing artistic and cultural landscape of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. This program features a small sampling of the vast quantity of Italian music that survives from favorite composers like Arcangelo Corelli and Giuseppe Torelli, and lesser-known gems by composers such as Giovanni Grossi and Maurizio Cazzati.
A Note About the Instrument
One of the greatest joys for a historical performer is continuously reevaluating and rediscovering our understanding of the past and the experiences of our forebears. In reviving any lost art, it is a long journey of uncovering the rich tapestry of details and stories that make our old instruments sing, both in their day and in the 21st century. At its core, a trumpet 400-something years ago was a metal tube with a mouthpiece on one end and a bell at the other, to be played one-handed. (So that one could ride their horse with the other hand!)
This instrument gives us the notes of the harmonic series with pure and resonant main notes at the bottom of its range, while the high range has increasingly more melodic capabilities. It is in this higher tessitura of the trumpet that the pitches of the natural harmonic series sound different from the equal-tempered scale with which most 21st century players and audiences are familiar.
This juxtaposition makes the musically “good notes” better and the “bad notes” worse, providing an exceptionally dynamic, varied, and engaging musical experience. In other words, the more tense the dissonance, the more satisfying the resolution to consonance. The instrument I am playing today is a very close copy of a I.W. Haas from Nuremberg c.1700, one of Europe’s most famous and well-respected instrument makers, made by Aron Vajna in Basel, 2020.
