Hakan Messer

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.

There's something fun and catchy about Michael Messer's eclectic album, King Guitar. Although the guitar featured on the cover is a vintage acoustic model, the music runs the gauntlet between down-and-dirty electric blues and quiet Delta slide. In a way, this mixture is sort of like an early Fleetwood Mac, with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer bringing different blues styles together in one group. Messer, however, accomplishes all of this by himself. His acoustic slide guitar is the epitome of taste on the lovely "Crow Blues" and the happy, upbeat "Steel Guitar Blues".