Online Trombone Journal
A highly positive recommendation praising Caterina and Sabella’s period-instrument approach, intonation, articulation and close ensemble in early Romantic bass-trombone concertos.
Read the review ↗ - Online Trombone Journal
Da Vinci Classics
Aldo Caterina, Giovanni Sabella
Physical and Digital Release: 27 September 2019
Giovanni Sabella and Aldo Caterina revisit four early-Romantic bass-trombone concertos, exploring the instrument's singing voice and virtuoso possibilities with piano.
13.67€
Digital programme · 16 tracks
Track timings refer to the digital edition.
Aldo Caterina, obtained bachelor and a master's degree in trombone at the Conservatory of Music G.B. Pergolesi in Fermo (Italy) with full marks and honors. He attended the course of High Specialization in Chamber Music in the class of Maestro Bruno Canino at the School of Music in Fiesole, Firenze (Italy). He also graduated in Philosophy at the University of Macerata (Italy). In November 2017 won the second prize in the solist category and Best Italian Musician Prize in the Virtuoso Prize International Competition, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome. After this recognition, the composer Davide Summaria dedicated him the composition Dialogo per trombone e pianoforte. In 2018 and 2014 he was guest trombonist in the European Tourneé of Standford University Orchestra direct by Giancarlo Aquilanti.
He published for the editor Il Castello of Foggia (Italy) the book Il trombone: la storia, il funzionamento, i modelli. Aldo Caterina collaborates with the Historical Publishing House Tito Belati of Perugia (Italy) in enhancing and reproducing in musical performances historic trombones produced by the Tito Belati Factory in the first half of the '900.
After having perfected himself in Germany, he has focused his attention on the original solo romantic repertoire for German trombone, offering public performances in concerts with original instruments or copies of the romantic era. For the manufacture of German romantic trombones he collaborates with the artisans Gerhard Wolfram and Karl Ernst Mönnich of Marckneukirchen (Germany).
GIOVANNI SABELLA is a pianist, conductor and composer. He wrote stage music for Teatro Stabile d'Abruzzo of L'Aquila (Italy). His last experience as a pianist gave him the opportunity to hold a concert at the Yamaha Music School in Bangkok (Thailand) and to hold a seminar on the poetry of Debussy at the Assumption University in the same city.
Carl Heinrich Meyer (1784–1837) was a German composer and viola player associated with Leipzig. Born in Buchholz, he trained in the tradition of town musicians before working in Leipzig as a music proofreader, theatre music director and orchestral player. He performed in the Gewandhaus Orchestra and in chamber ensembles led by Heinrich August Matthäi.
His works include operas, orchestral and church music, wind pieces and dance collections. His concertos for the trombonists Friedrich August Belcke and Carl Traugott Queisser belong to the early development of the instrument’s Romantic solo repertoire.
Christian Gottlieb Müller (1800–1863) was a German violinist, composer and conductor. Born in Niederoderwitz, he trained with town musicians in Zittau and Wurzen before continuing his studies in Dresden. He joined the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra as a violinist in 1825.
In Leipzig he taught the young Richard Wagner and directed the Euterpe musical society, which presented Wagner’s early compositions. In 1838 he became municipal music director in Altenburg. His catalogue includes operas, symphonies, overtures, wind concertos, quartets and sacred music.
Friedrich August Belcke (1795–1874) was a German trombonist and composer, and one of the instrument’s pioneering nineteenth-century virtuosos. He made his solo debut with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1815 before pursuing his career in Berlin.
Admired for the clarity, precision and range of his playing, he helped establish the trombone as a concert solo instrument. His own compositions and the works written for virtuosos of his generation contributed to the expansion of its technical and expressive repertoire.
Johann Immanuel Müller (1774–1839) was a German organist, cantor, music director and composer. Born in Schloßvippach in Thuringia, he moved to Erfurt as a child and studied organ with Georg Heinrich Kluge. He subsequently worked at the Reglerkirche, in Kerspleben and, from 1810, at Erfurt’s Kaufmannskirche.
He founded a choral society in Erfurt in 1818 and became music director of the Ratsgymnasium in 1820. His compositions include symphonies, overtures, chamber music, an oratorio and numerous sacred works. He is particularly remembered for the song Beresinalied, on words by Carl Ludwig Giesecke.
In the European music scene of the early XIX century we are witnessing the peak of the virtuosi phenomenon. Heirs of the arte del porgere of the late XVIII century, they embody the heroic spirit of the new romantic aesthetics. They left the courts, travelling around Europe, from a concert hall to another, enchanting the audience; they became the new heroes of the paying public. Most of us would remember musical wonders like Paganini or Liszt, who are legends still today. Very few, if nobody, will remember the very first…
In the European music scene of the early XIX century we are witnessing the peak of the virtuosi phenomenon. Heirs of the arte del porgere of the late XVIII century, they embody the heroic spirit of the new romantic aesthetics. They left the courts, travelling around Europe, from a concert hall to another, enchanting the audience; they became the new heroes of the paying public. Most of us would remember musical wonders like Paganini or Liszt, who are legends still today. Very few, if nobody, will remember the very first trombone virtuosi. At that time, the trombone resurrected from the XVIII century oblivion and became a regular member of the orchestra. Initially, the audience just regarded trombone solo playing with curiosity; however, thanks to the work of great musicians, its value of virtuoso was soon recognized. In the German area, two of these musicians contributed with their skills to the writing of the first concertos and to the later development of the instrument, namely Friedrich August Belcke (1795-1874) and Carl Traugott Quisser (1800-1846). At the beginning, Belcke was trombone player in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, where he made his debut as a soloist in 1815; after that, he spent the rest of his career in Berlin. With his precision, clarity and neatness of sound and technique he was able to amaze the audience and to get noticed by great composers like Mendelssohn and Schumann, with whom he also made friends. Belcke also promoted, and possibly even inspired, an invention by the brasswind maker Christian Friedrich Sattler (1839), i.e. the F-attachment. Basically, the new instrument was a Bb tenor trombone featuring a (compared to that time standards) very wide bore and the introduction of a valve activated by the left thumb of the player, which lowered the general pitch to the F of the bass trombone. This novelty allowed reaching the lower register of the bass trombone, although it was not intended to substitute it, as many believe nowadays. The F-attachment added new positions enabling a series of passages, combinations and technicalities that were unconceivable up to that point. Belcke’s refined playing technique together with such a new instrument thus amplified the trombone extension up to four octaves and beyond. Another name strictly related to Belcke was Queisser, who played with him at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for a short time. Queisser was noted not only for his technical skills equaling Belcke’s ones, but especially for the vocal qualities of his sound. He adopted the new trombone with F-attachment almost immediately. His virtuosic qualities inspired the later German trombone repertoire and, in turn, also the repertoire of the other worldwide known trombone center, i.e. Paris. Praeludium, Chorale Variations, and Fugue for trombone and piano and the three Concertini for trombone and orchestra (presented here in the reduction for piano) are the very early examples of literature conceived for the new instrument, inspired by and written both by and for these key figures in the history of trombone.
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Online Trombone Journal
A highly positive recommendation praising Caterina and Sabella’s period-instrument approach, intonation, articulation and close ensemble in early Romantic bass-trombone concertos.
Read the review ↗ - Online Trombone Journal
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