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Fantasia
BRITTON THEURER

 

		Price: $14.00 Catalog Number: CPS-8612 Audio Format: Stereo, DDD Playing Time: 75:56 Release Date: 1991
Cover Design: Elizabeth Ono Rahel Cover Photo: Glenna Theurer

 

Track Listing & Audio Samples
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		Britton Theurer
	1.	Feste (3:56)
		Stephen Jones & Britton Theurer, trumpets
		Gary Smart
	2.	Trumpeter Swan (16:57)
		The Franciscan Quartet
		Britton Theurer, trumpet
		Britton Theurer
	3.	Fantasia (10:28)
		Gary Smart, piano
		Britton Theurer, trumpet
		Charles Eakin
	4.	Trumpet Capriccio (12:13)
		Britton Theurer, trumpet with electronic digital delay
		Salvador Brotons
	5.	Sonata da Concerto (12:48)    Listen: RealAudio or MP3
		Gary Smart, piano
		Britton Theurer, trumpet
		Elliott Schwartz
	6.	Sinfonia Juxta (10:58)
		Elliott Schwartz, piano
		Stephen Jones and Britton Theurer, trumpets
		Steve Barnhart, percussion
		Gary Smart
	7.	Fanfare, Invocation and Alleluia (7:41)
		Marilyn Smart, soprano
		Gary Smart, piano
		Britton Theurer, trumpet

 

Related Links
• Elliott Schwartz @ Electronic Music Foundation
• Elliott Schwartz @ G. Schirmer Inc
• Elliott Schwartz @ Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies

 

Reviews

Fanfare - by Alex Ross

"Britton Theurer, a trumpeter of considerable gifts and a professor at the University of Wyoming, has put together a collection of recent works emphasizing his instrument. Fantasia is the title; three of the composers also participate in this recording as performers, and much of the music has an improvisatory feel. (Theurer wisely notes that classical music might enjoy additional gains by nurturing composer-performer reciprocity: the composer's first-hand knowledge of the virtuoso's expressive powers, and the performer's ability to hear music through the composer's ears) To summarize briefly: Theurer's two works are in a bright middle-American idiom, flavored by jazz (his Feste, from 1982, is the only pre-1990 score on the program); Gary Smart's pieces are comparable, although verging on the bland (Trumpeter Swan was inspired by a New Yorker article!); Charles Eakin's Trumpet Capriccio pits solo trumpet against "electronic digital delay," highlighting Theurer's virtuosity (the process is no advance over traditional tape-delay, and the whispering voice effects unfortunately recall the leitmotif of the Friday the 13th movies); Elliott Schwartz's Sinfonia Juxta combines two occasional pieces into a free-flowing, percussion-accented format; and, most interesting to my ears, Salvador Brotons's Sonata da Concerto, composed in a nostalgic, fluid early-atonal manner (that of the Berg sonata, say). The performances and sonics are fine, although I was somewhat wary of Marilyn Smart's soprano voice in (her husband's?) Fanfare, Invocation, and Alleluia. Theurer makes a particularly impressive showing next to the well-known Stephen Jones in his own exuberant, joust-like Feste. The notes are quite extensive. None of this music is apt to cause a stir; I recommend it principally to brass enthusiasts."