Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970) — Nobody knows de trouble I see (1954) Concerto for trumpet and orchestra, inspired by Louis Armstrong

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) — Concerto for piano No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 (1900)

Sylvain Tolck, trumpet
Roger Muraro, piano
Orchestre des Jardins Musicaux cond. Valentin Reymond

Recorded by SRF/RTS

German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann is a musical meteor of the 20th century. A singular figure with a tragic destiny much like that of Marie, the heroine of his opera, Die Soldaten. In love with the absolute and with perfection, he was tormented by a Hitlerian youth and lived on in spite of himself, finally committing suicide at the age of 52.

The trumpet concerto, Nobody knows de trouble I see embodies an aesthetic of collage. Like Gershwin, but in the opposite direction geographically, the composer seeks to establish a link between classical composition and jazz. He describes his approach as an attempt "to amalgamate the formal principles that differ from each other on a stylistic and musicological level". We find in this concerto the spirit of the composer: that of the fervent Christian (spirituals), the church musician (the use of the cantus firmus that unifies the work), the humanist (reference to Louis Armstrong). Thanks to its sheer difficulty, the concerto has also become something of a "Mt Everest" for trumpet players worldwide.

On 15th March 1897 in St. Petersburg, immersed in a state of advanced drunkenness, Alexander Glazounov conducted Symphony No. 1 of the then 24-year-old young Rachmaninov which only leads to a disastrous example of conducting and negative reaction from the public. Rachmaninov does not recognise his music: he thinks he does not know how to compose, falls into depression and stops writing. After two years of ineffective therapy, his doctor suggests that he try to compose again. This is the Piano Concerto No. 2: a breathtaking, and indeed his greatest success.