Alison Balsom – Quiet City (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alison Balsom - Quiet City (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Alison Balsom – Quiet City (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:08 minutes | 940 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

“This album has been an utter joy to make […] The concept of this project began decades ago, when I decided that Copland’s Quiet City was a work that everyone needed to hear – especially so as Copland reveals the scene so brilliantly via the solo trumpet and cor. There is a true melancholy in this work that only a certain type of trumpet playing can achieve, and across the collection on the album I’ve tried to show that through the unique lens of the trumpet, the wonderful bridge and mutual respect between the classical composers and arrangers, and the jazz greats can be seen. For many of us, the sentiment behind Quiet City is pertinent at the moment, as we emerge from the loneliness of the pandemic and into another chapter of darkness in today’s turbulent world […].”
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Alison Balsom, Tom Poster – Légende: Works for Trumpet and Piano (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alison Balsom, Tom Poster - Légende: Works for Trumpet and Piano (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Alison Balsom, Tom Poster – Légende: Works for Trumpet and Piano (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:19 minutes | 993 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

The trumpeter Alison Balsom has a rich Warner Classics catalogue, but this is her first CD recital with piano – here played by her long-standing recital partner, Tom Poster.
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Alison Balsom, The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock – Sound the Trumpet: Royal Music of Purcell and Handel (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alison Balsom, The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock - Sound the Trumpet: Royal Music of Purcell and Handel (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Alison Balsom, The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock – Sound the Trumpet: Royal Music of Purcell and Handel (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:19 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

In the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, Alison Balsom celebrates the heroic era of the Baroque trumpet in works by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and Henry Purcell (1658 or 1659-1695), whose anthems, odes, sinfonias and operas have provided the music for numerous royal celebrations from their own day to the present.

Joining forces with Trevor Pinnock, harpsichordist, conductor and pioneer of historical performance, and with the English Concert orchestra that he founded, Balsom demonstrates the versatility and expressive power of her valve-less instrument in original works and new arrangements. These include Purcell’s Sound the trumpet and Handel’s Eternal Source of light divine in duet with countertenor Iestyn Davies and Purcell’s The Plaint from The Fairy Queen in duet with soprano Lucy Crowe. Further repertoire includes suites from Purcell’s semi-operas King Arthur (1691) and The Fairy Queen (1692) in new arrangements by Balsom and Pinnock, Handel’s Water Piece in D Major HWV 341 and his Oboe Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major HWV 301 transposed into C Major.

Alison Balsom is one of today’s most popular classical musicians. Having managed to break through to the mainstream without abandoning her musical integrity, she continues to draw ever-wider audiences for her performances and recordings of diverse repertoire.
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Alison Balsom – Seraph (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom - Seraph (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom – Seraph (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:04 minutes | 466 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Alison Balsom is the world’s preeminent female classical trumpeter. She is an unique and independent artist who have broken through to the mainstream whilst retaining her integrity and core musical values. Exceptional talent, a glamorous stage presence and a witty and engaging personality make Alison one of the most exciting and bankable artists in the core classical world today.

Alison’s new recording of modern and contemporary repertoire marks an important artistic stepping stone in her career. This labour of love features the world premiere recording of Seraph, James MacMillan’s trumpet concerto written for Alison, works by Takemitsu and Zimmermann and includes her long-awaited recording of the ever popular Arutunian Trumpet Concerto.
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Alison Balsom – Royal Fireworks (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Alison Balsom - Royal Fireworks (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download

Alison Balsom – Royal Fireworks (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 57:02 minutes | 2,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Royal Fireworks, a collection of Baroque masterpieces and new arrangements performed with the Balsom Ensemble (her hand-picked ensemble of period instrument specialists), will be Balsom’s 13th solo release for Warner Classics and her first since 2016’s Jubilo. The album sees her perform on the natural (valveless) trumpet and features concertos and orchestral masterpieces by Handel, JS Bach, Telemann and Purcell. A pioneer of adapting works written for other solo instruments, Balsom is committed to demonstrating the versatility of the trumpet and will feature three new orchestrations by arranger Simon Wright on the album.
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Alison Balsom – Paris (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom - Paris (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom – Paris (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 52:04 minutes | 485 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

An ‘astonishing virtuosa’ (The Times) with ‘limitless potential’ (The Guardian), Alison Balsom is a multi-faceted trumpet player involved in a broad range of musical projects. The pieces on this collection inhabit a common Parisian musical world, but the voices that emerge from them are incredibly varied. From Ravel to Reinhardt, Balsom illustrates the flexibility and expressiveness of her instrument, supported by the orchestra of jazz composer and trumpeter Guy Barker.

One of today’s most in-demand classical music personalities, English trumpeter and BBC Proms darling Alison Balsom shares her love of Paris on this new solo album. After becoming the first British woman to win Gramophone Magazine’s prestigious Artist of the Year award, Alison brings her glamour, poise and dazzling virtuosity to Paris with a selection of music written in and inspired by the most romantic city in the world.
This album marks a major departure for Alison Balsom from the core classical repertoire, with which she has established her distinguished recording and performing career to date, to a crossover album, taking inspiration from a number of different artists and influences. The concept of the album is Paris as seen by artists and composers as diverse as Olivier Messiaen, Astor Piazzolla, Django Rheinardt and Cole Porter. In collaboration with Guy Barker – a trumpeter who has worked with the biggest names in the business, and with a solid reputation in the jazz world – Alison reinterprets the greatest music written about in and about Paris. With guest artists Miloš Karadaglić, and Julian Ovenden on a bonus track available on iTunes, this album is sure to position Alison amongst the top-selling classical artists with mainstream appeal and broad recognition.
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Alison Balsom, Quentin Thomas – Music for Trumpet and Organ (2002/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom, Quentin Thomas - Music for Trumpet and Organ (2002/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom, Quentin Thomas – Music for Trumpet and Organ (2002/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 57:43 minutes | 506 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

A highly acclaimed artist and one of music’s great ambassadors, Alison Balsom was named Best Young British Performer at the 2006 Classical BRITs and was honoured with the Classic FM Listener’s Award at the September 2006 Gramophone Awards. In 2007 the Echo Klassik Awards hailed her “Rising Artist of the Year and in 2009 she became the first Briton ever to be crowned “Female Artist of the Year” at the Classical BRITs.

Whilst represented by the Young Concert Artists Trust, Alison caught the ear of EMI Classics, with whom she records exclusively. Her internationally celebrated Bach Trumpet and Organ disc of 2005 was quickly followed by the Caprice album which won her further critical acclaim. Alison’s most recent recording which includes the gems of the trumpet repertoire, the Haydn and Hummel’s Trumpet Concertos was named among the 24 records of 2008 by the New York Times.
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Alison Balsom – Jubilo – Fasch, Corelli, Torelli & Bach (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alison Balsom - Jubilo - Fasch, Corelli, Torelli & Bach (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Alison Balsom – Jubilo – Fasch, Corelli, Torelli & Bach (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:15 minutes | 1016 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

With this release Alison records on the natural trumpet for the first time since the hugely successful album Sound the Trumpet. Inspired by seasonal Baroque repertoire, the recording includes concertos by Bach, Corelli, Torelli, and Fasch performed with the Academy of Ancient Music under the direction of violinist Pavlo Besnosiuk. The Schübler Chorales and In dulce jubilo by Bach, performed in arrangements for trumpet and organ played here by Stephen Cleobury, act as a beautiful foil to the full orchestral sound of the concertos. Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring featuring Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge tops off this Christmas cracker of an album. This classy winter-themed album is a perfect core classical seasonal offering.
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Alison Balsom, Scottish Ensemble – Italian Concertos (2010/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom, Scottish Ensemble - Italian Concertos (2010/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom, Scottish Ensemble – Italian Concertos (2010/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:01:45 minutes | 594 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

She makes the trumpet sing with an irresistible exuberance and eloquence. With the human voice a particular inspiration in the music of Italy, the words of The Times have a special resonance for Alison Balsom in these works composed or inspired by Italian composers of the 18th century. This collection provides an apt vehicle for the award-winning trumpeter’s characteristic brilliance and grace.
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Alison Balsom, Thomas Klug, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen – Haydn & Hummel: Trumpet Concertos (2008/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom, Thomas Klug, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen - Haydn & Hummel: Trumpet Concertos (2008/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom, Thomas Klug, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen – Haydn & Hummel: Trumpet Concertos (2008/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 52:47 minutes | 497 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Alison Balsom’s fourth album for EMI Classics features Franz Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s evergreen trumpet concertos, coupled with concertos by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda and Giuseppe Torelli. Balsom also directs Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

The Haydn Trumpet Concerto is arguably the most popular work for the instrument as well as one of the composer’s best known compositions, a favourite of performers and audiences alike for its wonderful melodic invention and challenging virtuosity. Reviewing Alison’s performance with the Milwaukee Symphony in March of this year, the Journal Sentinel wrote, “Alison Balsom’s details of attack, release, dynamics and timbre polished Haydn’s … Trumpet Concerto into an exquisite little gem. …This concerto … has its moments of brilliant bugling. More often, though, it [shows the short-lived keyed trumpet] capable of a refined sort of expression …. Balsom excelled at both facets of the concerto. She snapped off staccato 16ths with ease and signal calls with clarion purity and power. And she shaped and colored Haydn’s gentle, lyrical lines with the grace and warmth of a really good Mozartean mezzo.”

Jonathan Freeman-Attwood’s CD booklet note describes the notoriously-difficult-to-play ‘natural’ trumpet of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and the development of the ‘keyed’ trumpet by the Viennese court trumpeter Anton Weidinger in the 1790s, which inspired the concerto masterpieces by Haydn and Hummel performed on this disc.

The enticing melodic possibilities of Weidinger’s “keyed” trumpet, and indeed the artistry of Weidinger himself, moved Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), then at the height of his powers, to compose his concerto in E-flat for trumpet & orchestra. His last purely orchestral work, the concerto is a “gloriously ebullient and concise masterpiece in which the composer […] conceives a highly distinctive palette to thrust the trumpet into a brave new world.” Interestingly, it was not premiered until 1800, four years after its completion, possibly because Weidinger needed time to master its technical challenges.

Also composed for Weidinger was the Concerto in E Major (often performed, as here, in E-flat) by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), prodigy, student of Mozart and, later, of Haydn. Hummel composed his trumpet concerto in 1803 and Weidinger premiered it the following year for members of the Esterházy court. The composer was subsequently appointed music director there, on Haydn’s recommendation and likely helped by the success of his trumpet concerto. The concerto, “a more expansive work [than Haydn’s, takes the modified trumpet] a stage further in variety of idiomatic figuration and harmonic adventure.”

The Concerto in D by Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) was composed for the “natural” trumpet and likely performed on feast days in the San Petronio Basilica. The concerto for hunting horn and strings in E-flat by the Czech composer Johann Baptist Neruda (c1707-c1780) was probably written in the 1760s and is an example of a charming, traditional work of its era.
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Alison Balsom, Edward Gardner, Göteborgs Symfoniker – Caprice (2006/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom, Edward Gardner, Göteborgs Symfoniker - Caprice (2006/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom, Edward Gardner, Göteborgs Symfoniker – Caprice (2006/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 59:46 minutes | 534 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Voted Young British Classical Performer of the Year at the 2006 Classical Brits, Alison Balsom follows her critically-acclaimed album Bach: Works for Trumpet with Caprice, a novel and demanding programme of specially arranged popular classical works.

The album features sparkling transcriptions of Mozart’s ‘Rondo alla Turca’ and the Queen of the Night’s aria (from The Magic Flute) as well as the scintillating ‘Variations on Bellini’s Norma’ by the French virtuoso Jean-Baptiste Arban. Amongst the more lyrical numbers, Balsom plays arrangements of Rachmaninov’s haunting Vocalise and the exquisite Nocturne from Tomasi’s Trumpet Concerto. She also brings her unique sound to two pieces played by the trumpet alone: Paganini’s well-known violin Caprice No.24 and Debussy’s Syrinx.
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Alison Balsom – Bach: Works for Trumpet (2005/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Alison Balsom - Bach: Works for Trumpet (2005/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Alison Balsom – Bach: Works for Trumpet (2005/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:11:28 minutes | 683 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

The title Bach: Works for Trumpet is a little misleading: While Bach did compose glorious music for that instrument, everything here is a transcription. No matter. Bach himself was an avid transcriber, and these adaptations would surely draw smiles from the old Saxon — not least because of the virtuosity of the soloist, Alison Balsom, who navigates music originally for keyboard, cello, violin, voice, and other sources with equal aplomb. Most daring, perhaps, are Balsom’s unaccompanied selections: two movements from one of the cello suites, a Gigue from a violin partita, and the lively Badinerie from the Second Orchestral Suite. There’s nothing to mask shortcomings in technique on these solitary tracks, yet Balsom never loses her stride in music that must pose an extra challenge on trumpet rather than on the nimbler flute, violin, or cello. Organist Colm Carey steps in to accompany three transcribed concertos (two of which are in turn Bach revisions of scores by Vivaldi and Marcello, adding to the complexity), while a small chamber group joins the trumpeter for a trio sonata and part of the Agnus Dei from the B Minor Mass. A harpsichord-accompanied Italian Variations and a version of the beautiful song ‘Du bist bei mir,’ with chamber organ and viola da gamba, complete the album’s pleasingly diverse assortment of backup combinations. Balsom’s playing is spirited and expressive, with a tone that swaps brassy glitz for a supple vocal quality. All in all, an impressive major-label debut that reveals a talent to keep an eye on.
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