Trombone Fantasy

Klassik Heute 10/10/10 February 2012.

For almost 30 years Christian Lindberg has been on a never-ending quest, taking his trombone to the most distant destinations, geographically as well as musically. On this disc he combines the two, as he joins the Taipei Chinese Orchestra in a programme of works for trombone and Chinese orchestra. And with his usual, insatiable curiosity, he hasn’t restricted himself to the role of soloist, but has also composed a work directly for the orchestra, inspired by the poetic sounds of the Chinese instruments into writing what he describes himself as ‘a quite sad little fairy tale’: The Wild Rose. Also by Lindberg, Kundraan was originally composed for trombone and chamber orchestra but was arranged for the purpose of this disc. The remaining works in the programme are by the eminent Taiwanese composer Yiu-Kwong Chung, whose compositions feature on two previous BIS recordings, both with the Taipei Chinese Orchestra. Chung has adapted a famous aria from the Peking opera Cursing General Cao Cao into a striking piece in which the solo trombone is supported by the traditional trio of Peking Opera (clapper and drum, descant fiddle and lute) against the orchestral backdrop. For the Mongolian Fantasy, a couple of traditional songs have provided the starting point, as well as the typical Mongolian throat-singing technique which is alluded to in the solo part. But Chung finds inspiration even further afield – his concertino for trombone and Chinese orchestra focuses on the first and last lines of Baudelaire’s poem Recueillement. In the composer’s own words, it is written in an impressionistic style, using the special tone colours of the rarely heard extremes of the solo instrument’s range to express the strange effect of Baudelaire’s poems.