Page 40 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

You do such wonderful work with the Balsom Ensemble; when did
you first become interested in period instruments, and what

inspired you to master the natural trumpet?

I didn’t actually start playing the natural trumpet until I was in my third
year of music college when it was offered to us as an option. I had a

great teacher, Stephen Keavy, where as soon as I picked it up, (I had

no clue what to do with my fingers or holes!) I just loved the way it

made me feel. My playing felt open and without tension; all of those

knotty things you experience when you play your valve or rotary key
trumpet weren’t there. You can get so tied up in all the technical

challenges of the instrument, whereas with the natural trumpet, there

is no technical challenge of the instrument. It’s just your body, your
embouchure and an amplification. I love that. It unlocked so much of

my own playing and also my own understanding of baroque music.

The baroque period has nothing to do with the piccolo trumpet, but as
trumpeters, we can often get fixated on it. The natural trumpet

suddenly showed me how to phrase baroque music well. So, I was

very quickly hooked and fell in love with it. I remember trying to work

out how to play such simple things like the Purcell Sonata! Now for
the first time in my life, I understood what Purcell meant! So how

could I get around it to make the thing work? It was quite a sudden

passion and commitment to baroque instruments.

Actually, one of the first recordings I heard, even before the Dizzy

Gillespie tape, happened to be a recording of Trevor Pinnock and The

English Concert playing the Brandenburg Concertos four, five and six. I

was absolutely mesmerised by the energy, and it’s still my favourite of
any recording ever. Brandenburg five with The English Concert, 1983, a

baroque, period instrument recording, is the best recording of

anything ever. But it showed me that Baroque music has this life
force, this energy that is raw and unaffected. I was very drawn into it

at an early age. I didn’t even understand what the term ‘baroque’