Forced to choose thetwo most important violinists of the 20th century, you would have a recipe for aprotracted and painful polemic. Would it be Busch for taste, Kreisler and Heifetz for modern professional acumen, the ubiquitous Menuhin or the many eligible fiddlers who have defined post-war musical life? No such complications exist with the trumpet. There are two clear pivotal figures who catapulted their instrument into new and lasting arenas ofcultural significance: Louis Armstrong and Maurice André. While the two represent polar endsof the profession, these aremusicians whose impact on the development and standing of the trumpet are unequalled. Between them, they established the instrument as a major solo voice for the likes of Rafael Mendez, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Håkan Hardenberger, John Wallace, and many others, to make their mark.

What Maurice André did was to free the classical trumpet from the shackles of the orchestra and bandstand and present it as aserious alternative to established concerto instruments. Without André, would Herbert von Karajan have even considered making a major recording with the Berlin Philharmonic devoted to trumpet concertos?

André’s journey on his way to becoming ‘le grand trompettiste de notre temps’ is an eventful tale. Brought up in Provence, André was sent down a mine at 14 having started the trumpet only a couple years before when his father(also an amateur player) gave him a book of standard love songsto learn. Within a week, André had mastered the volume anddiscovered his vocation.

‘Prone to lethargy and indolence’: early days

Arguably the defining moment was André’s move to Paris to study with the notoriously demanding Raymond Sabarich at the Paris Conservatoire. On his own admission, the student was prone to lethargy and indolence. Sabarich instilled a discipline and work-ethic that soon reaped rewards: set the arduous task of learning a series of challenging studies, André mastered them so completely and brilliantly that his teacher now understood what his young protégé might achieve. In fact, Sabarich could not have imagined that this gregarious and swarthy trumpeter would record over 300 discs spanning 40 years.

In 1963 André went to Munich to adjudicate on the panel ofan international competition. Whether it was the size of the cash prize or a developed sense of destiny, André resigned from the jury and declared himself instead a competitor. He emerged the dazzling victor. Doubtless this success had not come from nothing, but Munich confirmed what was inevitable – that André was to resurrect the trumpet from its golden age in the 18th century and uncover its full expressive potential in the modern era.

Judged solely by the range of idioms he explored, André was not an especially adventurous musician. His impact on contemporary music was not inconsiderable but the commissions tended to play too narrowly on ephemeral French talents (such as Charles Chaynes and Henri Tomasi) and Gallic taste. There was the temptation, also, to play kitsch jazz arrangements by the likes of Claude Bolling – admittedly with dazzling technical fireworks. The one notable exception is his nimble contribution in 1962 to Stravinsky’s L’Histoire de Soldat, narrated by Jean Cocteau and Peter Ustinov. By nature, he did not seek an international community of tried-and-tested composers to write for him in the way that Hakån Hardenberger, say, has done. Perhaps the best achievements in this vein are the brilliant baroque pastiches of Bernhard Krol (Magnificat Variations) with its ‘hoch Trompeten’ resonances, and Fritz Werner’s virtuoso five-movement Suite.

The latter is a gorgeous score with strings, magnificently performed and recorded in the early ’70s with the Württemburg Chamber Orchestra under Jörg Faerber (sadly nla). André’s link with Werner the conductor originated in recordings of Bach cantatas in which André’s dazzling playing became the yardstick for subsequent standards of assured, fearless and incisive obbligati. The same can be said for his remarkable performance in Karl Richter’s Christmas Oratorio for Archiv. The last chorus (and memorable last note) has rarely lifted the spirits to such heights.

The trumpet’s kingdom extended

It was the mastery of the high trumpet (the four-valved piccolo) and André’s involvement in its technical development, initially with the French manufacturer Selmer, that led to a transformation of the trumpet’s fortunes. André could not have sustained a solo career on a couple of Classical concertos and the substantial but limited range of original Baroque trumpet works. He therefore set about reconditioning works for violin, oboe and flute so as to bring about a new vocabulary for the instrument – one which extended the trumpet’s triumphant nature to something altogether more soulful and reflective. André gave 18th-century composers a second chance to do the instrument justice. The trumpet could now traverse the tessitura of a violin sonata and render it truly idiomatic within the new order. More recognisably, André brought a sweet lyrical quality to slow movements, one of the hallmarks of his outstanding recorded legacy.

In André’s phenomenal virtuoso hands, almost all the transcribed concertos and sonatas he performed were delivered with effortless panache. Therein lies both his greatest gift but also his Achilles’ heel. In an age of copious releases from Erato and EMI (his main record companies), there is a considerable divide between those projects in which André seems vitally consumed by the music and others where his formula for genial fluency makes for some bland auto-piloting. As a musician who performed as many as 200 concerts a year, aside from his recordings, he often became a victim of his own extraordinary stamina and technical facility, too readily resorting to uncommitted monochrome readings. His recorded achievement therefore requires a degree of circumspection and more discrimination than record companies have hitherto shown in their reissues.

‘Opening like a bud in slow motion’: André on record

To celebrate André’s 70th birthday last year, DG produced a two-CD exposé of André’s early recordings from Munich which include three Handel and three Telemann concertos, made shortly after his Munich competition success, with Karl Richter at the helm. These include concertos by Michael Haydn (the most stratospheric tessitura of any trumpet concerto) and the Haydn under Hans Stadlmair. There is something remarkably subtle about much of this playing, not least in the E minor Telemann Concerto where Richter’s acute ear is matched by André’s elegant ‘primus inter pares’ solo. Here, André gives us more by doing less, incorporating a piano so delicate that it sets him apart from any player before or since.

The die was indeed cast for a solo career offering a kind of haute couture for which the trumpet was hardly renowned. Such qualities are also found in a single disc from Philips, under Albert Beaucamp, in which there is a breathtaking performance of an Albinoni Concerto in D. Do not be put off by a series of very early (1960) and unsatisfactory tracks of André performing with a clarinet sextet. Philips should consign these to the archive – and leave them there.

Most of André’s recordings were made for Erato from 1968 until well into the ’80s. These vary enormously in quality of both programming and interpretation. André’s future reputation will largely depend on how this huge discography is packaged and whether the best achievements are allowed to shine above the prolific recordings of middle-of-the-road Baroque sonatas. By and large, his playing with orchestras provides a more durable legacy than his substantial but inconsistent recordings with organists Hedwig Bilgram and Marie-Claire Alain, though there are still individual performances to relish here.

Where André was decidedly ambitious was in tackling mature and extensive concertos for oboe: no-one can deny the supremely judged, pin-point coloration in Mozart’s reworked Oboe Concerto or the dazzling, soaring bravura of the Introduction, Theme and Variations, Op 102, by Hummel. This is the sort of repertoire where André’s collective strengths emerge: articulation so unbelievably even and controlled, poignant slurring which rides the waves of his famously elongated phrases (where does the air come from?) and a tantalising vibrato which adds the large vestige of satin to his full, generous and exquisitely focused sound. Speaking of taste, there is an intuitive concept of how a musical instrument must ‘sing’ as its sine qua non above an orchestra. Such a virtue makes his disc with Herbert von Karajan a document to behold, if not just for the calibre of the performance of the Hummel Concerto, for the way the Telemann Concerto opens like a bud in slow motion. This is one of EMI’s treasures. Another is a disc of Handel, Albinoni and Hertel with Mackerras and the ECO, which is vintage André at his most engaged. The best of these performances, and the Haydn taken from a largely undistinguished disc with Riccardo Muti, constitute a new release in EMI’s Great Performers of the Century series.

The remaining discs from that company are distinctly variable; there are two recordings from the ’90s, one with Hedwig Bilgram where André tries to instil histake on ‘authenticity’ by trilling every other note and another Haydn/Hummel combination with the Liszt Chamber Orchestra which is disappointingly enervating. Before that, and also on EMI, he recorded a fine disc of concertos with Faerber of concertos by Otto, Barsanti, Handel and Albinoni’s oft-played Op 9 No 2. The Adagio here is amongst the most beautifully shaped in his long recording career and captures the essence of what makes André indisputably the most consummate artist in the history of the Classical trumpet. Those fortunate enough to hear André at his best in concert will recall that open-hearted stance rocking backward and a sound so radiant and round that its inimitable quality could be harnessed from the back of a large symphony hall, unforgettably and uncannily retrievable in one’s memory years after.

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