Trumpet Concertos / Gran Capriccio for Oboe / Concertos for Euphonium

"Magnificent playing..especially by brand-spanking new Principal Trumpeter of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, 26-year-old Giuliano Sommerhalder, whose astounding technique redounds in every bar, and who approaches this music with a real flair and almost I-dare-you mannerism. His fast vibrato is almost period-like in these works, and he has a lot of fun. Simone Sommerhalder, lately of the Gewandhaus Orchestra also makes easy work of the difficult Gran Capriccio, surely one of the composer's finest creations in any genre. The Euphonium playing of Roland Froscher is quite, well, euphonious (you just knew that one was coming, didn't you?), and all the forces here are on top of their games. The music is really a mixed bag, much superb, others a little parlorish, but that is just what Ponchielli was and is, so if you like it you will relish this album, and if not-well try it anyway, just for the remarkable instrumentalists involved. The surround sound is truly excellent, well-spread and evenly distributed."
(AudAud.com)

Amilcare Ponchielli's wind concertos number among the most virtuosic works of the romantic era. He distinguished himself with successful pieces for concertante winds during the mid-nineteenth century, and in every measure one hears that this Italian actually felt called to become a music dramatist. The Mecklenburg State Orchestra of Schwerin and the soloists Giuliano Sommerhalder, Roland Fröscher, and Simone Sommerhalder present us his concertos for trumpet, euphonium, and oboe in a swift parforce chase.