Search - Alexander Arutiunian, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Leopold Mozart :: Classical Album

Total misconception

Hugo Miura | Jales, SP Brazil | 05/31/2000

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Recording quality: goodRepertoire: fairPerformance: badThis was a sad atempt to introduce Mr. Sandoval to the roll of classical trumpet players. He is indeed a master technician of the instrument but has no understanding of interpretation in Baroque and Classical periods.All the concertos (except his own) are totaly out of the right dinamics, tonguing, articulations, slurs, and vibrato. This last item (the vibrato) plays an important role in ones interpretation. Mr. Sandoval uses it as he was playing popular Cuban music. His articulation and tonguing are extremely heavy, giving the pieces a too much marcial style rather than a delicate solo part. There are too many bad things in this recording, but I won't list all of them.This album should go togheter with his Trumpet Method, which is another unsucessful atempt.I would not recommend this recording to anyone seriously interested in trumpet playing. This CD is surely for fans only."

Not bad, however very hit or miss.

JetTone12 | USA | 09/28/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's no secret that Arturo is one of the best trumpet technicians there is. He has unbelievable technique, a great sound, great range, and he's also an exciting player period. His first classical outing has some moments of greatness that most orchestral players would probably envy, however, there are also some bad moments on this album. Arturo easily has the technique to play through these pieces, which he handles as if they were child's play. However, his interpretation is off in certain places. Arturo plays with the Russian classical style, largely because he studied with a Russian teacher in his younger days (or so I'm assuming). That works pretty well for him on the "Arutuinian Concerto", which was written by Armenian composer Alexander Arutuinian. While Arturo's is not quite as good as Sergei Nakariakov's or Timofey Doksheizer's (which is nothing no feel ashamed of), his articulation is accurate and his sound stays good throughout. He also plays very well on the Leopold Mozart Concerto For Trumpet in D. He plays it very smoothly and sounds very effortless. This is a great piece also. His Hummel recording is fine until he gets to the third movement. He played it so loud! I love Arturo, but someone should've told him this isn't merengue, it's Hummel. He adds the latin flavor brilliantly in the second movement which was very passionate and romantic as it should sound. Also, his cadenza on the first movement knocked me out, and he played the first movement pretty well. His last piece is pretty bad, however. It's not a great composition, and sounds pretty shlocky. Arturo tried to go into new ground, and it didn't really work at all. Overall, it's not Arturo's best work. His classical playing improved a lot more on the Trumpet Evolution album. It was more tasteful. Arturo should have played more tastefully on some of the movements. Other than that, he did pretty well, and it's not fair to knock him completely for this album, because overall it's not bad, it just has some bad parts. I wish Amazon had a half star rating ability, because my overall rating of this album = 3.5 stars."