With her new tour Alison Balsom seeks to display all that the trumpet has to offer
By H.R.
THE typical image of the trumpet is brash, loud and decidedly male. Yet it is not only Alison Balsom’s gender that means she has a good a chance as anyone at countering these stereotypes with her first solo tour. Ms Balsom is classical music royalty. She studied as the Paris Conservatoire and is now a fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2013 she was crowned Gramophone Artist of the Year, and she is a three-time winner at the Classic BRITs. Ms Balsom’s status has been cemented by her high-profile collaborations with contemporary composers. In 2011 she gave the world-premiere performance of James MacMillan’s "Seraph", and at the 2014 Proms she premiered Qigang Chen’s "Joie Éternelle".
But attending her performance at the Royal Albert Hall earlier this week, Prospero found Ms Balsom branching out from her classical roots. The dramatic lighting, enthusiastic cheering and audience participation are foreign to classical concerts but not unfamiliar pop. The pieces performed were of similar lengths to pop tracks too, none lasting more than a few minutes. Ms Balsom could therefore fit an eclectic programme into the evening. With arrangements ranging from Bach to Gershwin, Ms Balsom sought to display all that the trumpet has to offer.
One such quality is the trumpet’s ability to project. Other instruments would have difficulty filling the vast space, and subtle contrasts between dynamics would be lost. But Ms Balsom could still be heard even when playing quietly. In an arrangement of Debussy’s "Syrinx", she ably exploited the contrasts between loud and soft sections.
Ms Balsom admits that works written for solo trumpet are scarce. Other than "Okna" by Petr Eben, which featured the rarely heard blend of trumpet and organ, most of the works in the programme were arrangements. Some worked less well than others. The appeal of Eric Satie’s "Gymnopédie No. 3", originally composed for solo piano, comes from its simplicity. Here an arrangement for piano, strings and trumpet overcomplicated the work. And the addition of the organ to the final piece, Astor Piazzolla’s "Libertango", felt like an unnecessary intrusion.
While she was dressed in trousers, separating herself from the ball gowns usually worn by classical soloists, she still had some difficulty in shedding her roots. During some of the jazzy, upbeat numbers—Clifford Brown’s "Joy Spring" and Miles Davis’s "If I Were a Bell"—Ms Balsom was outshone by her jazz quintet. Prospero was impressed by the improvised solos by Grant Windsor, a pianist, and Julian Siegel, a saxophonist and composer. While Ms Balsom’s playing cannot be faulted technically, it was obvious that she is not a natural jazz musician. Her performance was too clean, and not as raw.
Ms Balsom’s performance at the Royal Albert Hall was nonetheless a unique occasion. Far from being restricted to raucous fanfares, Ms Balsom showed that her instrument is capable of much more. Not only did Ms Balsom prove that the trumpet can be melodic, in drifting between classical and pop she showed that even a fully-fledged classical musician could escape from the concert hall’s sometimes stuffy setting.
The German leg of Alison Balsom's tour will start at the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg on November 14th
