Armando Ghitalla, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, William Perry - A Trumpet Legacy (1987)

Like Rafael Mendez and Roger Voisin before him, Armando Ghitalla was a legend in the classical trumpet category. He did not probe the extreme depths of the expressive voice of the trumpet, like Voisin, nor did he go flying off hell bent for leather, as Mendez was wont to do -- Ghitalla's was a good, all-around trumpet sound. Replacing Roger Voisin in the first trumpet chair of the Boston Pops when Voisin retired in 1963, Ghitalla was still teaching when he died in 2001. Bridge's Armando Ghitalla: A Trumpet Legacy is a reissue of an album produced by Peter Breiner, possibly for Naxos, but not released. It appeared in 1992 on the subcutaneous Premier Records label as Trumpet Concertos of Three Centuries, and the Bridge issue added Two Dance Pieces by William Perry not included on the original release.
William Perry is a television composer best known for his soundtrack music for PBS' The Silent Years; both his Concerto for Trumpet, written for Ghitalla, and the Two Dance Pieces are not very challenging pieces of music, nor are they meant to be. They are gentle, good-natured, and cinematic pieces; the Slovak Philharmonic seems to have some trouble getting the bolero rhythm down in the first of the Two Dances, and Ghitalla himself gets a little hung up with his difficult E flat horn in the second, which probably militated against their release the first time around. It is not as though Ghitalla can do them again, so their release in 2007 is appropriate. Ghitalla matches the model of trumpet to the works included, employing a piccolo trumpet for the Molter. While it is a little piercing in tone, the performance does not have the unanimity of approach that Maurice André tended to employ in similar concertos. The Ponchielli concerto is "borrowed," arranged by Breiner from a clarinet concerto. While all of this literature is minor, that is not the main event; it is Ghitalla, with his pearly, well-articulated, gracious, and clean tone, ringing clear as a bell.
It is not unfair to say that this disc is mainly for trumpet fanciers and players of the instrument. Nevertheless, if the listener falls into either of these categories, then Bridge's Armando Ghitalla: A Trumpet Legacy is definitely worth checking out.