Trumpet Player Maurice Andre dies aged 78

[Allen]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17173246

[stenka razin]

Andre was my favorite trumpet soloist on CD. He was truly unique and he shall be greatly missed. This is sad news indeed.


Regards,
Mel

[Ted Quanrud]

Thanks, Allen, for the heads-up on this. I read your post about 45 minutes ago while hosting my radio program. With a quick stop in the station library and some frantic re-progamming, I was able to replace a scheduled CPE Bach flute quartet with Andre's recording of Loeillet's Trumpet Sonata in A, Op. 3/11 to mark his passing.

Thanks again.

[Heck148]

Great player, one of the best...

He will be missed..

[jbuck919]

Thanks, Allen, for the heads-up on this. I read your post about 45 minutes ago while hosting my radio program. With a quick stop in the station library and some frantic re-progamming, I was able to replace a scheduled CPE Bach flute quartet with Andre's recording of Loeillet's Trumpet Sonata in A, Op. 3/11 to mark his passing.

Thanks again.

Wow! CMG to the rescue.

[John F]

I saw him once, playing Brandenburg 2 in the '60s with Karl Richter and his band. A big man with a tiny trumpet, like a toy. My father was there and was amused. But André aced the piece.

[jbuck919]

I saw him once, playing Brandenburg 2 in the '60s with Karl Richter and his band. A big man with a tiny trumpet, like a toy. My father was there and was amused. But André aced the piece.

Of course he did. (The tempo would be considered slow by current virtuoso standards.)

[slofstra]

One of the very first live symphony concerts I ever attended featured Maurice Andre, and my long-abiding impression was of a big man with a tiny trumpet, as John Frances so aptly put it. This had to be around 1980. He also appeared on this recording which was very popular at the time.



So, I've thought of him as one of those performers who made classical music more accessible for the non-devotee.

[johnQpublic]

DELETED

[Lance]

Terribly disheartening news. I have collected his recordings from my first day of collecting. The man was a miracle-musician in what he accomplished in taking the trumpet to new heights. I just did a radio tribute to his pupil Guy Touvron. Who would have thought ... May he RIP.

[david johnson]

[jbuck919]

I'd publish the usual NY Times obituary, but the Times has not seen fit to print one.

[Lance]

There was nothing in our local paper today either though NPR stations were playing recordings of André in his memory and honour today. What an artist! If he made it to the Great Beyond, he will have no problem heralding in new entrants with a special trumpet as we arrive! I've always wanted to play the Vivaldi C Major Double Concerto with him. Think I stand a chance?

I'd publish the usual NY Times obituary, but the Times has not seen fit to print one.

[nut-job]

Sad to see an icon of classical music go, but I for one found the sound of his trumpet insufferable. I only came to enjoy baroque trumpet playing when the original instrument crowd come to the fore with the more gentle tone of an 18th century natural trumpet.

[PJME]

André made ca 300 recordings and it is a very mixed bag : from Bach to Offenbach and beyond...Chansons by Edith Piaf, Noels, Puccini and Verdi...everything could be trumpetized.

Still, I discovered him through his recordings of - ca 1960-1970 -contemporary composers he (propably) knew well: Henri Tomasi, André Jolivet; Charles Chaynes...

Although he did not première all the Jolivet compositions, his version of these brillantly rowdy works stands out.

http://youtu.be/TZUaDpKTTo0 (concerto nr 2)
http://youtu.be/sM4yXpFWYbw (concerto nr 1 = concertino)
http://youtu.be/v3LEfcpCU7A ( Arioso barocco for trumpet and organ)
http://youtu.be/svw-6dpoQS4 ( Heptade for trumpet and percussion)


P.

[maestrob]

March 3, 2012
Maurice André, Trumpeter, Dies at 78By MARGALIT FOX
Maurice André, a virtuoso credited with having transformed the trumpet from a workaday cog in the back of the orchestra into a seductive solo instrument in front, died on Feb. 25 in Bayonne, in southwest France. He was 78.

His family confirmed the death to the news agency Agence France-Presse, declining to specify the cause.

Mr. André, who began his professional life as a coal miner, was esteemed as a trumpeter for his warm, robust tone; lightning technique; and clarion high notes, whose stratospheric reaches could prompt waves of applause from audiences.

What potential for showmanship his gifts entailed was mitigated, most critics agreed, by his sensitive musicianship, which let him spin out lyrical, shapely lines much as a singer would.

By all accounts, Mr. André was to the trumpet what Jean-Pierre Rampal was to the flute or Pablo Casals to the cello: a player whose instrument, long considered a mainstay of the orchestral ark, became, in his hands, the fleet, dazzling tool of a concerto soloist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/arts/ ... 8.html?hpw