Hakan Alyuruk

During the second half of the 19th century, a French school of trumpet playing was established, with French musicians and composers at the forefront of the instrument’s musical and technical development. As a result, it was entrusted with a more prominent role within the orchestra and soon also as a solo instrument. On the present disc, Håkan Hardenberger – who like so many other leading trumpet players studied in Paris – presents some of the fruits of this development: five important French works composed between 1944 and 1977. With the support of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Fabien Gabel – who incidentally began his career as a trumpet player – he opens the disc with Henri Tomasi’s Trumpet Concerto. Often performed and recorded, it here appears on disc for the first time with its original, longer ending, reconstructed from a newly discovered manuscript.

Born in 1976, Southern Turkey, Hakan A. Toker studied partly at Bilkent University School of Music and Performing Arts, Ankara. He completed his education in the USA at Indiana University School of Music, double majoring in piano and composition (BM 2000). He also took courses in jazz and electronic music there. Along with his formal education, he taught himself how to improvise and play Turkish music; learned to play the kanun and accordion, after the piano.

Born in 1976, Southern Turkey, Hakan A. Toker studied partly at Bilkent University School of Music and Performing Arts, Ankara. He completed his education in the USA at Indiana University School of Music, double majoring in piano and composition (BM 2000). He also took courses in jazz and electronic music there. Along with his formal education, he taught himself how to improvise and play Turkish music; learned to play the kanun and accordion, after the piano.

Alongside his celebrated performances of the classical repertory, HåkanHardenbergeris also renowned as a pioneer of significant new trumpet works. The three works on this disc were all composed with him in mind, and illustrate his many-facetted musical persona. The most recent of them, ‘True Stories’ by Betsy Jolas, was written in order to give Hardenberger and Roger Murarooccasion to perform together. Its title springs from the fact that the work forms the composer’s first attempt to work with sounds selected from daily life and either ‘tamed’ through stylization or left quasi crude.