In recent years, it has become increasingly fashionable for trumpeters to perform songs originally written for voice and piano, often as a means of supplementing the paucity of repertoire for the instrument, particularly from the Romantic period. The Vocalise series aims to augment and enhance this burgeoning tradition.
Vocalise études became common during the 19th century when vocal ‘exercises’ were set to piano accompaniment – based on the assumption that singers would execute them more musically with the addition of harmony. Several notable composers wrote such studies, which are now viewed as genuine musical works in their own right. Due to the omission of any text, the process of transcribing these pieces for trumpet is relatively straightforward, and as such they emerged as an obvious starting point for this series.
The concept was then expanded to include songs with text. Arranging these for trumpet is more complicated, since the words are integral to the shape and phrasing of the music. Care has been taken to reflect this in the solo parts, employing slurs and tenutos to represent melisma and stress points respectively.
Arranged and edited by Simon Cox and Huw Morgan, the Vocalise series is published by Resonata Music and contains the following works, with several others planned for the future (use the player to listen to the works contained in the series):
- Dvořák – Songs my Mother Taught Me (Als die alte Mutter)
- Elgar – Three Songs
- Fauré – Vocalise-étude
- Mahler – Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?
- Ravel – Two Hebrew Melodies
- Ravel – Pièce en Forme de Habanera
- Rimsky-Korsakov – Not the Wind, Blowing from the Heights
- Schubert – Two Melodies
- Tchaikovsky – Does the Day Reign?
- Wagner – Three Wesendonck Lieder
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