Notes and Editorial Reviews
For the Birds combines two long-out-of-print LPs (minus one track) that showcase Laurence Trott's remarkable piccolo prowess and versatility. He's featured in a broad range of compositional styles, from decorative Baroque classics by Handel, Arne, and Couperin and tunes from The Bird Fancier's Delight (1717), to drawing room kitsch by L.C. Read, H. Kling, and Ernest Koehler and serious contemporary works by Michael Horwood and Lejaren Hiller. The latter's An Apotheosis of Archaeopterix consists of six short movements in which a piccolo and a berimbau merge North Brazilian rhythms and percussive effects with florid melodies.
Perhaps the most original of the recent "serious" works (and my personal favorite track
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on the disc) is Robert McBride's brief, witty, and utterly inventive Shut Up, Mockingbird, for a quartet of piccolo players. For this I'm willing to put up with salonish drivel like Ernest Koehler's Nightingale Polka, a seven-minute piece that says all it needs to say in its first 15 seconds. Michael Horwood's Birds brings an eclectic stylistic aviary together under one banner, highlighted by a striking movement called "Endangered Birds", packed with rumbling string piano shrieks and Trott's fiery flutter-tonguing. Those who buy this disc no longer will doubt the piccolo's capabilities as a viable, expressive instrument on its own, flute-less terms. In sum, a real "tweet"!
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com Read less
Works on This Recording
1.
The Canary Polka, for piccolo & piano by L.C. Read
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 2 Minutes 26 Secs.
2.
Bird Fancyer's Delight, for sopranino recorder: selected tunes by Anonymous
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Date of Recording: 03/30/1940
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 3 Minutes 5 Secs.
3.
Le Rossignol-en-amour et Double, for harpsichord (Pièces de clavecin, III, 14e ordre) by François Couperin
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Period: Baroque
Written: 1722; France
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 4 Minutes 39 Secs.
4.
Turtle Dove Polka by William Rimmer
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Period: Modern
Written: 1909
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 5 Minutes 20 Secs.
5.
Acis and Galatea, HWV 49: Hush, ye pretty warbling quirel by George Frideric Handel
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo),
Rachel Lewis ()
Period: Baroque
Written: 1718/1736; London, England
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 6 Minutes 37 Secs.
6.
Under the Greenwood tree by Thomas Augustine Arne
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo),
Rachel Lewis ()
Period: Baroque
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 2 Minutes 28 Secs.
7.
The Nightingale Polka, for piccolo & band by Ernest Koehler
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 7 Minutes 11 Secs.
8.
An Apotheosis of Archaeopterix, for piccolo & berimbau by Lejaren Hiller
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo),
Jan Williams (Berimbau)
Period: Contemporary
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 11 Minutes 51 Secs.
9.
The Two Little Bulfinches, for 1, 2 or 3 soloists & band by Henri Kling
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Written: 1908
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 3 Minutes 28 Secs.
10.
Shut Up, Mockingbird, for 4 piccolos by Robert Guyn McBride
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo),
Virginia Markson (Piccolo)
Period: Modern
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 1 Minutes 28 Secs.
11.
Pochod Modrácku (March of the Bluebirds), for piccolo & piano (or carillon or tambourine), JW 7/9 by Leos Janácek
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Period: Post-Romantic
Written: 1924; Czechoslovakia
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 1 Minutes 58 Secs.
12.
The Nightingale, for soprano, piccolo & piano by Adolf Terschak
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo),
Rachel Lewis ()
Period: Romantic
Date of Recording: 1926
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 5 Minutes 56 Secs.
13.
Birds, movements (8) for piccolo & piano by Michael S. Horwood
Performer:
Laurence Trott (Piccolo)
Venue: St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Length: 1 Minutes 11 Secs.
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