Maurice André has died

[Guest]

Maurice André the great trumpet player has died

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/02/breaking-the-1-trumpet-player-has-died.html

[Roehre]

By far the best part of my first LPs featuring trumpet-solo works were performances by Maurice André.
I.a. cherished recordings of the Haydn and Hummel concertos and many baroque works.

RIP Maurice André

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

By far the best part of my first LPs featuring trumpet-solo works were performances by Maurice André.
I.a. cherished recordings of the Haydn and Hummel concertos and many baroque works.

RIP Maurice André

[EdgeleyRob]

Very sad news. RIP.

[Petrushka]

The only CD of Andre that I have is the celebrated concerto disc with Karajan and the BPO which was reissued in the 'Great Recordings of the Century' series on EMI.

RIP

[doversoul1]

Maurice André was to me synonymous to classical trumpet music for a long time. It feels like an end of an era.

RIP.

[BBMmk2]

Completely agree doversoul. he had such a lyrical tone, where others seem too brash and showed what the trumpet could do. RIP MA

[Colonel Danby]

With Philip Jones, Maurice Andre was among the best trumpeters of his generation: my favourite recording of his was the "Royal Music of King James I" on an old Decca Serenata label: Anthony Holborne, Giles Farnaby etc wonderful music.

Sad news indeed. RIP Maurice

[doversoul1]

The Guardian’s obituary. I wonder if he reads this forum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/29/maurice-andre

[french frank]

Interesting it says: "Both soloist and orchestral accompaniments on many of André's recordings now sound inflexible, with dirge-like tempi for slow movements. But at the time, this style of playing was thrillingly new and original." It illustrates how our 'criticism' is influenced by times and tastes (tempora and mores!) and how 'now' is so often appreciated because it's now/new.

But would people agree that by contemporary standards 'many' (NB not all) of the recordings can sound 'inflexible' and 'dirge-like'? Or is that only in the mind of the obituarist?

[Rupert P Matley]

Interesting it says: "Both soloist and orchestral accompaniments on many of André's recordings now sound inflexible, with dirge-like tempi for slow movements. But at the time, this style of playing was thrillingly new and original." It illustrates how our 'criticism' is influenced by times and tastes (tempora and mores!) and how 'now' is so often appreciated because it's now/new.

But would people agree that by contemporary standards 'many' (NB not all) of the recordings can sound 'inflexible' and 'dirge-like'? Or is that only in the mind of the obituarist?

The obituarist in my view, clearly hasn't listened to that many Andre recordings, or if he has, not listened closely enough. Tempi is one thing (though they weren't all dirge-like in the slow movements of his recordings) but Millington also mentioned that nowadays there is more variety in phrasing and articulation. If he'd listened to enough Maurice Andre recordings he would have heard a master of his craft, perfectly capable of variety both phrasing and articulation to adapt to whatever the music required, far from being 'inflexible'. But he wasn't just a specialist in the baroque field. The obituary mentions the contemporary composers who wrote for him but he was perfectly at home playing jazz. And he also made a strong case, in my opinion, for his recordings of the Mozart and Haydn (attrib.) Oboe Concertos as making them sound convincing on the trumpet (despite a poor orchestra accompanying him).