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O Vos Omnes by Carlo Gesualdo

on January 29 2012, by Jo

We are delighted to be making a return visit to Milverton, Somerset in February. The acoustics in this beautiful parish church are well suited to sonorous sacred music and so we have chosen to include music by Carlo Gesualdo (1566 – 1613), John Bull (1546 - 1623) alongside a new work by Helena Gascoyne.

O Vos Omnes by Carlo Gesualdo has been arranged for us specially by Paul Archibald and the words of the mass translate as:

O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow. Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

The music is resonant and chromatic, ideally suited to the open sound of trumpets. There has been much speculation about the impact of Gesualdo’s life on his writings. If you like reading a life story worthy of a Shakeperean tragedy than Click here to see the decline of his reputation from Prince to Criminal.  We will be pairing this work with a Suite from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. On first hearing I loved John Bull’s The King’s Hunt, you can actually hear the horses galloping past. So much music from this period is pictoral rather than abstract and it’s lovely to play music that tells a real story.

Our premiere for this recital is Trumpet Quartet No.1 by Helena Gascoyne. Helena is currently studying composition at Goldsmiths, London. Trumpet Quartet No 1 by Helena Gascoyne. My previous post is an interview but here is a flavour of what to expect:

The first movement begins with a fanfare-like call.  Harmonically the music is modal in character, moving mainly between the aeolian and dorian mode.  Rhythmically the metre is constantly changing.

The second movement is slower in tempo and contrasting in mood.  The opening theme almost jazz ballad like with its 9th, 11th and occasional 13th chords.  This same theme heard again towards the end of the movement, re-harmonized and with the phrases extended in length.

The opening of the final movement is rhythmically jaunty in character.  However the music progressively becomes more and more sinister in mood.  Towards the end of the movement we hear distorted fragments of the fanfare-like call and main theme from movement one: in places this is heard simultaneously.

The return of the jaunty opening of movement 3 movement brings Quartet No 1 to a close.


From the start Bella Tromba has sought to develop the concept of brass as chamber music. Yes, we like tunes, can play quiet and have the stamina to deliver a full evening programme. The range of the regular trumpet is three octaves and much of our repertoire makes use of smaller trumpets, flugels or even Baroque trumpets. The concert at Milverton will feature a bass trumpet, a new addition to our line up. The bass trumpet is usually heard in the orchestral music of Wagner, Strauss or Stravinsky. We are really interested to receive feedback from our audience at Milverton about hearing this unusual instrument.

A New Piece by Helena Gascoyne

on January 04 2012, by Jo

Helena Gascoyne is heading towards the completion of a new piece for Bella Tromba to be performed on February 18th as part of a recital for The Milverton Concert Society . She spoke to Jo over a coffee about where her music comes from, how she translates it from head to paper and what inspires her.

“I have music running through my head all the time.  It’s a bit like musical tinnitus, I can’t switch it off.  When I get an idea that grabs me, that’s when I rush to write it down.  However quite often my ideas are lost due to the time consuming process of actually putting them down on paper or even using Sibelius.  When I’m composing I hear the music fully orchestrated.  Having perfect pitch allows me to hear the melodies and harmonies in a specific key.  When I was five my dad would play ‘guess the note on the piano’ with me and I could name the note without peeking.  Each key has its own colour: for instance I see the key of G as yellow and the key of B flat as green.

I get my inspiration from emotional highs and lows.  When my music comes out I’m not aware than I’m writing in the style of a particular composer and I don’t try to emulate other composers but people often tell me my music is like Gershwin, Rachmaninov or Prokofiev.  Sometimes I can see the connections but I certainly don’t set out to write in their style.

I listen to music more for research and perspective rather than as background.  The last live gig I saw was the music of Michel Legrand. I like all kinds of music from Latin and jazz to Baroque through to Romantic.  I enjoy listening to the jazz pianist Keith Jarrett and I love playing the piano music of Scarlatti,Skriabin and Ravel.
I think my music catches people immediately with its strong melodies and complex harmonies, reflecting my love of jazz music.”

Helena Gascoyne studied piano at the Royal Welsh College of Music. As a pianist she has worked as a repetiteur for singers from the Welsh National Opera, accompanied the National Youth Choir of Wales and performed solo recitals at St David’s Hall. Helena is now studying for a Masters in Composition at Goldsmiths, London.  Her new piece, as yet untitled, will be premiered at St Michael’s Church, Milverton on February 18th 2012.

Bella Tromba at Selfridges

on December 23 2011, by Jo

As Christmas approaches the trumpet really does come to people’s minds as the instrument that most evokes the spirit of Christmas. From Classical Spectacular concerts to Handel’s Messiah the bright, shiny trumpet gets all the big tunes in the festive season.

People often tell me they love the sound of a Salvation Army (SA) Brass Band playing carols in the open air whilst taking a collection for their charitable causes.  The original concept of putting music on the streets was to take worship music outside in order to reach the people that weren’t taking a pew in the local church. Brass instruments were a lot cheaper and more mobile than the church organ. They also provide a great social network for musicians and people of all ages and backgrounds.
The SA often took well known songs and reworked them with new lyrics, translating the secular into the sacred. They have worked their way into the publics imagination to the extent that Mr Bean could base a mimed sketch around it.  I’ve just been waiting for a train home in a cafe and listening to a compilation of famous excerpts from the Nutcracker and carols. Each one had been twisted into a funked up version to the extent that I think people would only recognise the source material subliminally. Arguably it’s the turning of the sacred back to the secular. Whilst I like looking at old music from a new angle it’s always a pleasure to play the traditional and original works too.
This week we have been playing at Selfridges every afternoon bringing live Carols to people at one of London’s most famous and coveted shopping destinations.  It was lovely to talk to passers by who stopped to listen and told us about a particular song that had memories for them. We met a few young trumpeters and had lots of fun dancing with the ‘characters’ that were their to entertain the children (and adults). We managed to sneak in a bit of shopping and celeb spotting during our breaks. Over eight days the quartet members bought a new leather jacket, cat hat, LBD, diamante eyelashes and cosmetics. We took the opportunity to tweet about some of the celebs we glimpsed deliberating over an expensive purchase. 
The best bit was seeing the Sale racks lined up and ready to go onto the shop floor, insider knowledge was a big job perk.

From everyone at Bella Tromba, have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year.

RVW Trust back the Premiere

on July 02 2011, by Jo

We are delighted to announce that we have received further funding to commission Bruce Nockles to write for Bella Tromba.
The Church Stretton and South Shropshire Arts Festival have jointly funded the new work that will premiere on the 2nd August 2011.

Bruce Nockles, the composer of new work, Blast for Four Trumpets and Hand-held Percussion, knows the trumpet well as he has performed some of the greatest new works for trumpet with leading contemporary ensembles The London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern.
Gillian Moore, Head of Contemporary Culture at the Southbank Centre, writes of the new work:

Across it’s eight minutes, Blast sets out to create a sense of scale, contrast and dynamism from the Ensemble of four trumpet players.  As well as asking them to play percussion, Bruce Nockles re-imagines how an ensemble of four trumpet players might relate to each other, asking them all to play an equally important role, passing snatches of music back and forth, often at breakneck speed.  This idea is set out at the very beginning of the piece, when the players pass a rhythm around the group on claves.  Nockles, himself a trumpet player, has said that this reminds him of a click track in a studio before the recording begins and, as the “click track” seamlessly transforms into trumpet sounds, the music emerges as an off-kilter dance, with harmonies and rhythms influenced by popular and jazz music. But the composer has clearly also been immersed in the innovations which contemporary classical composers have brought to rhythm and to the ways in which one kind of music can transform into another. 
The hand-held percussion comes back to punctuate the piece a further three times as the musical argument develops.  A short, slow section of richly chordal music puts the spotlight on the harmonic character of the piece, magnifying and simplifying the frenetic activity of the rest of the music.  This gives way to the longest section of the work, where spiky musical machines are contrasted with melting chromatic shapes, as the sounds are filtered through the rapid changing of mutes.  The final section brings back the dance energy of the opening. 
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Shiny New Van Laar Trumpet

on May 28 2011, by Jo

I am now the proud owner of a beautiful brand new C Trumpet. It’s so silver it is practically white.  I have placed it on a table on a cloth and I gaze at it and polish it before and after playing.  It’s the most expensive thing I own and when I play it I feel tingly.

These Flickr pictures show the way that musicians identify themselves through their instrument. They look happy don’t they? Apart from the crazy guy eating his violin.  Perhaps he spent his life savings on it and can’t afford any food….

Every musician thinks they play the best instrument and has a story about how they realised it was the instrument for them. This lovely article about Lou Anne Neill, principal harpist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic speaks of the first time she glimpsed a harp in the back of an orchestra as a child:

“I couldn’t see the strings from where I was sitting,” she says. “I just saw hands move through the air, and these beautiful sounds were coming out of the instrument.”

Well, for me it was seeing a gold trumpet in a shop window while on holiday. It was in the very centre of the display, upright on a stand with Christmas tinsel around the bottom. The spotlights were shining on it and it was glinting. I knew it could play loud and I knew that sitting at the back of the orchestra looked like the most fun. I suppose a little like sitting on the back seats of the bus. To put think in context and if you think I’m mad, I was surprised to see that you can actually get your instrument blessed at a special Vespers service.

If you would like your own beautiful C Trumpet I can recommend visiting Hub Van Laar in his workshop in the Netherlands. Trumpeters from all over Europe and the US buy his custom made instruments. I believe I am the first UK Classical player to own one.  It’s easy to get to the Margraten workshop from London. I went by Eurostar and train to Maastricht and from there Heidrun the manager picked me up.  Trumpet players, you know you want to!


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