Shimmering, sentimental and epic and, like all legends, inimitable. The now-septuagenarian Timofei Dokshitzer is at long last properly represented in the catalogue in several of his finest moments. Wielding a large-bore B flat trumpet, this extraordinary Russian virtuoso puts even Sandoval’s fine account of the Arutiunian Concerto in the shade for sheer interpretative vitality. What one notes in this near-definitive version is that being over-the-top is, at its best, an art of self-control.
The constant vibrato may sound a touch comic, and leave the speakers flapping feverishly, but Dokshitzer is acutely sensitive to idiom, and not only of music in his own ‘tongue’ (all the more surprising given that he worked almost entirely in the most restricting Soviet period) as his staggeringly colourful and invigorating transcription of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue demonstrates. Here and in the glowing and translucent reading of Gliere’s Concerto for coloratura soprano, Dokshitzer has you basking in richly vibrating low registers, soaring lines fuelled by Zeppelin-loads of air and a variety of articulation of rare quality. The Hummel Concerto, even with its outrageous cadenzas, and the rather perfunctory Biber sonata wear less well but are still unique to this remarkable trumpeter. A most welcome release.'