Like Carlton Classics’s new recording of Crispian Steele-Perkins playing the natural trumpet in baroque works (4/97), this reissue from 1986 contains a pleasing mixture of the familiar and the rediscovered. Though frequently recorded, there are surprisingly few versions of the Haydn Trumpet Concerto which one would be happy to experience on a regular basis but this is certainly one of them. Steele-Perkins’s playing is concerned with shape and decorum, not just demonstrative virtuosity. To this end, he brings a lively buoyancy to the fast movements with especially well-judged articulation; the little-known Michael Haydn Concerto (just as stratospheric as the better-known work) is a case in point with its lyrical vocalizing, disarmingly complemented by a shimmering texture of languid flutes. Steele-Perkins brings his cultivated sense of line to both this work and the Torelli, though the Telemann Concerto for trumpet and two oboes – a rather pedestrian piece it has to be said – is altogether less invigorating.
The resonant acoustic is advantageous throughout, particularly in the Neruda, a work where momentum, in less distinguished company, is inclined to sag. Anthony Halstead and the ECO provide sensitive and tasteful accompaniments throughout. The disc is certainly excellent value and it is good to see it back in the catalogue.'