UPCYCLE | THE ARTS DESK - REVIEW
Classical CDs: Mandolins, trumpets and hot soup
by: Graham Rickson | February, 2025
Upcycle, unusually, doesn’t contain any 21st century music. Instead, it’s a selection of short pieces from composers as diverse as Bach and Albeniz, transcribed for trumpet and piano, offering “a vision of what might have been possible if the modern trumpet was a solo instrument at the time these works were conceived.” Trumpeter Ashley Hall-Tighe plays with a winning blend of warmth and steel, beautifully accompanied by pianist Ana María Otamendi in arrangements made by Hall-Tighe’s husband Nathaniel. The prelude from Bach’s English Suite No. 2 is dazzling, the Sammartini recorder concerto which follows showing us Hall-Tighe’s lyrical side. Study the track listing and you’ll wonder how on earth these works will survive their transmogrification. Fear not. Hall-Tighe and Otamendi rise to every challenge: listen to their version of “El Puerto” from Book 1 of Albéniz’s Iberia, Hall-Tighe closing with a fiendish sustained high note. The “Adagio sostentuto” from Rachmaninov’s Six moments musicaux is gorgeous, followed by an idiomatic version of Clara Schumann’s G minor Piano Sonata and miniatures by Grieg, Sibelius and Chopin. An enchanting disc, and one of the best solo trumpet recitals I’ve heard.
