AU Music Professor Daniel Abraham Collaborates on Chart-Topping CD
AU’s Daniel Abraham collaborated on a CD release that topped classical music charts in the UK at its launch in January. Altissima: Works for High Baroque Trumpet was released by the British record label Chandos, a top classical recording label that was named Gramophone’s Record Label of the Year for 2022. Abraham, AU Music Program professor and Department of Performing Arts chair, collaborated with Baroque trumpeter Josh Cohen and the early music collective Ensemble Sprezzatura to record a CD under Abraham’s direction in January 2020, before the pandemic. In creating this recording, Abraham says that he and Cohen aimed to make a lasting contribution to the world of the early-music trumpet.
Editing, mixing, and mastering the recording were all delayed and then managed online. “Once Chandos decided to release it on their label, there was a backlog of pandemic recordings and work it was delayed further,” says Abraham. It was worth the wait. The CD has been reviewed by publications including Gramophone, BBC Magazine, AllMusic, and Fanfare and in US, and foreign publications in Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK, and reached no. 7 on the UK Classical lists.
The Trumpet’s Triumph
While the AU community may best recognize Abraham as director of choral activities and of the AU Chamber Singers, his knowledge of music is even more expansive. Abraham grew up playing the trumpet and studied with a virtuoso baroque trumpet player in high school and majored in both trumpet and voice as an undergraduate with a focus on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice. “This is an arena in which we use the understanding and tools of the past to best interpret early music in the present,” says Abraham. “This includes understanding documentation about performance in the past as well as understand the instruments, practices, and their histories.” Altissima features period instruments to best understand and experience the intentions of the repertoire. This scholarly-creative practice duality is known as historically informed performance.
As the project’s director, Abraham oversaw music research and production as well as the logistics. He conducted select works, directed and oversaw rehearsals, and prepared the performance materials with interpretive directions, decisions, and markings. But, he notes that collaboration is key to success in the early-music field, explaining that “I strongly feel the modern early music director should manage the music expression in a way that creates ample room for the performers to bring their ideas to the table.”
Exploring the Baroque
Most works in the compilation are lesser-known works by German composers from the Baroque period, which spanned from 1600-1750. For much of the recording, the solo trumpet performs in the clarino register, a demanding style of playing in an extreme high register. The CD’s title, Altissima, is Italian for “very high pitch.” “I know the trumpet literature pretty well and part of my job was to think about how to successfully record seven really challenging works from the standpoint of the solo trumpet player,” says Abraham.
The classical music world has taken note. According to Cumbria Times, Abraham and Cohen “have brought acumen and vision to their research and work therefore the performances have an authentic authority.”
Fanfare notes “The refined string playing of Ensemble Sprezzatura complements Cohen’s trumpet work and makes for a recital that conveys warmth, energy, and conviviality,” while AllMusic notes that “The backing from Ensemble Sprezzatura under director Daniel Abraham is lively and sensitive to the soloist's challenges.”
The Historic Brass Society writes, “. . .Cohen’s melodic stylings and punchy interjections are a perfect match for the orchestra’s contours. Cohen matches the string’s melodic shapings with pinpoint precision. . .”
To learn more about the CD, visit Chandos.
Josh Cohen, Ensemble Sprezzatura & Daniel Abraham: Altissima
Josh Cohen, Ensemble Sprezzatura & Daniel Abraham: Altissima, Works for High Baroque Trumpet. Filmed and recorded at Spencerville Adventist Church, Spencerville, Maryland, USA.