Following on the release in July 2020 of music demonstrating the family of brass instruments, the Brazilian virtuoso, Fabio Brum, displays nine differing trumpets.

That involves eight Twentieth century composers from around the Western world exploring the potential of a trumpet and piano duo, and I guess many people who buy this disc will be unaware that there are so many variants on a well-known instrument. Opening in South America with last year’s offering from the Argentinian composer Daniel Freiberg, Preludio played on a B flat trumpet is both glittering and jolly. In the shape of a two-movement Sonata, Serendipia, from the Spanish composer, Santiago Baez, is the disc’s most extended work, its style being a 2020 view friendly tonality with some interesting harmonic twists and turns. Here played on two trumpets—an orchestral B flat and a piccolo trumpet—corno, flugelhorn and horn in F, Brum readily moves from a creamy-smooth quality, for the slow ‘movement’, to a finale with its virtuoso presto conclusion. Brazil is represented by Gilson Santos’s jazzy Canzua, a trial of dexterity for both performers; Douglas Braga’s four movements of Cor, mostly for cornets; and Dimitri Cervo is represented by a part of the violin concerto reduced to a version for trumpet and piano. Concluding this international tour we have pure jazz from England with Misha Mullov-Abbado’s Cancon de Sobriedade. A disc for ‘trumpet’ connoisseurs who will I readily recognize the difference between instruments and the quality of performance from, the much travelled and critically acclaimed Brazilian, Fabio Brum. In a close-up recording, the Spanish pianist, Santiago Baez, gives an ideal and detailed accompaniment. © 2022 David’s Review Corner