Page 41 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

meant; I just knew I really liked the energy, the sophistication and the
beauty of it.

You recently revived a project from a few years ago, Gabriel. Can

you tell us about this unique performance and how it came to be?
I wanted to record a trumpet album with The English Concert without it

just containing the usual repertoire. I wanted there to be some kind of

narrative to it and some kind of fresh approach. Some sort of way for

me to be like a singer with that ensemble and Trevor, but the

repertoire was holding me back. I couldn’t do what I wanted, and the
current repertoire wasn’t what I was looking for at the time. So I

started a project (of at least nine months) to try and arrange for the

natural trumpet, which is a fool’s errand! It’s such a tricky thing to do
because if you don’t have all the notes of the scale, you can’t play

anything! Those composers knew what notes the trumpet could play,

so they wrote those notes! If you take an oboe concerto, for example,
the rules do not apply. There was so much music that I ploughed

through that I attempted to play, and after quite a long period, I

realised it wouldn’t work. So that project was binned.

We did end up with things like The Plaint, that I recorded with Lucy
Crowe and Iestyn Davies, which was so much fun! I can’t tell you how

satisfying it was to play with those two incredible singers. It’s music

that you’re not really allowed to play on the natural trumpet. It felt like

trying forbidden fruit — using the instrument in that way. It only works
if you use the holes, which are a modern invention but still, the sound

quality is much closer to the baroque instruments; the hole-less

natural trumpets. That way of playing really intrigued me. I know there
are people who will say that you’re not allowed to do this, but for me,

musically, I could justify it because I wanted to take the trumpet out to

these places. And it had taken so much work that I thought, why not
put on a concert of this stuff? And let’s do it somewhere that felt more

visceral than sitting in a concert hall. All the music was from semi-

operas, operas, dances, songs, or some dramatic contexts. I thought