10/8/2018 MAURICE ANDRE GAVE THE TRUMPET SOLO STATUS - The New York Times

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ARCHIVES | 1983

MAURICE ANDRE GAVE THE TRUMPET SOLO STATUS
By LUCY KRAUS NOV. 27, 1983
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Lucy Kraus writes frequently about music and musicians.
On a hot summer day not long ago, Maurice Andre sat in a favorite practice
space in his house in the country outside of Paris, playing the breathtaking runs of
Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto on his piccolo trumpet. His dog was at his feet,
howling and whining, as Europe's foremost classical trumpet player sent cascades of
high- pitched notes bouncing off the walls that surround his indoor swimming pool.
Today, at 3 P.M. the famous French trumpeter will be soloist with the Y
Chamber Orchestra at the 92nd Street Y. On the podium will be Gerard Schwarz, the
American trumpet virtuoso-turned-conductor. These two men, whose individual
drive and virtuosity on opposite sides of the Atlantic have dramatically enhanced the
cause of the classical solo trumpet, will be appearing together for the first time.
''Maurice Andre is a phenomenon,'' says Mr. Schwarz, who met the Frenchman
about 17 years ago when both were participating in a trumpet symposium in Denver.
''He made it all possible - just the way Jean- Pierre Rampal made it possible for
flutists. Without him, no one would be playing solo trumpet. Maurice was able to
make the trumpet a solo instrument in a way no one has done before. He has an
extraordinary personality on stage that people love. He has paved the way for others
to follow.''

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Mr. Andre, a plump, smiling man whose bushy black eyebrows actively rise and
fall beneath a mop of tousled white hair, agreeably accepts the credit.
''I have given the trumpet a place of honor as a solo instrument,'' he said with a
smile during an interview at his home in France. ''All my trumpet colleagues have
said so. Gerard Schwarz helped a lot because he is such a good trumpet player. Now
it's an instrument that is heard everywhere and accepted. In America during the past
seven or eight years, my trumpet friends have really done something for the
instrument. Before, however, they didn't do enough. The classical solo trumpet was
unknown in America. From time time there was a soloist in the orchestra, but now
there are more and more.
''I had to do a great many things to give the nobility back to the trumpet,'' he
concedes. ''The original repertory was not large or rich enough. I broadened it by
transcribing music for other instruments - the flute, the oboe, the violin - to enrich
it.''
Indeed, Maurice Andre has made a career of playing transcriptions, establishing
a repertory that goes far beyond the handful of major works written for the trumpet,
such as the Haydn and Hummel trumpet concertos. His success has been enormous,
with hundreds of recordings to his credit, a concert schedule of 100 performances a
year (down, by choice, from the 200 he played 10 years ago) and a house (he has
three) that, he says with a deep laugh, was paid for by his performances of the
Second Brandenburg Concerto.
Born in Al es, an industrial and coal mining center near N^imes, in southern
France, Mr. Andre spent his 14th through 18th years as a coal miner, a fact he recalls
with pride as he shows visitors his original coal miner's lamp. His father was a miner
who loved good music and played the trumpet, and the young Andre's talent for the
instrument ultimately led him to the Conservatoire de Paris, where he graduated in a
brief two years with the Prix d'Honneur. He later joined the French Radio Orchestra
as trumpet soloist, also doing studio work, and playing film music as well as jazz.
After he won an international competition in Geneva in 1956, his family and friends
encouraged him to become a soloist.
''From 1956 to 1963 it was very hard. I was not known to the public. There was
no audience for a trumpet soloist. Nothing happened.''
Then in 1963 he won the International Music Competition of the German Radio
and began making appearances with Herbert von Karajan and the late Karl Richter,

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primarily in performances of Baroque music. He made his American debut as a

soloist in 1974 with the W"urttemberg Chamber Orchestra and, he says, his career
''took off in America within two or three years.''
Mr. Andre, by his own count, has made about 260 recordings, including 30
different concertos by 20th-century composers such as Jolivet, Honegger, Ibert and
Enesco. Some were written expressly for him.
His emotions run very strong when it comes to the music of the Baroque,
especially Bach - his favorite - and the countless transcriptions he has made in that
vein have been a boon both to the trumpet and to the 18th- century literature. But
there is always more to be done.
''There is a definite void,'' says Stephen Burns, a 24-year-old solo trumpeter and
protege of Gerard Schwarz. ''It's difficult to fill in the 19th century Romantic music.
There wasn't any of high standard written for the trumpet.'' Mr. Burns, a Juilliard
graduate and winner of one of the first Avery Fisher Career Awards, tries to fill the
gap, in part, by performing transcriptions of music by Schumann, Mahler, Brahms,
Franck and others, while keeping his hand in contemporary music as well.
For Gerard Schwarz, however, the limitations of the repertory could not be
surmounted by transcriptions.
''I'm a purist,'' he says, ''and I try to do what composers wrote. I was never much
into transcriptions. It's fine for others, but it was not right for me - which limited my
repertory a great deal.''
Mr. Schwarz, formerly co-principal trumpet player of the New York
Philharmonic and a man once cited by Peter G. Davis in The Times as ''probably the
most celebrated trumpeter in this country,'' made it his business to play and
commission new works, many of which he has recorded. One such piece, Gunther
Schuller's Trumpet Concerto, will be performed at the 92d Street Y on Jan. 14 and 15
by Mr. Burns. ''It's a great piece of music,'' says Mr. Schwarz. ''There's a demand for
performances of that piece. It will help the trumpet.''
While trumpet players must decide for themselves how best to develop the
repertory, they must also keep pace with the continued physical demands of their
instrument. That means keeping their lungs strong, their bodies fit, and their minds
clear.
''The physical aspect - of staying in shape - is very hard,'' says Mr. Burns. ''To
play the trumpet you have to use your fingers, tongue and jaw as well as your lungs,

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diaphragm, and abdominal and back muscles. Basically it's your whole torso.''
In order to play at peak efficiency Mr. Burns, like most of his colleagues, drinks
no alcohol several days before a concert (''it's a matter of dehydration and
equilibrium'') and works out regularly, usually on the tennis court. Mr. Andre walks
a lot, swims and rides a bicycle.
Mr. Schwarz recalls another discipline.
''I got more sleep in those days,'' he says with a laugh. ''If you play a loud high
tone and don't get enough rest and there's not enough oxygen going to the brain, you
can actually black out, which I did once in a while.''
He also remembers the anxiety over his lip.
''I would wake up every morning and, with my tongue and the third finger of my
left hand, check to see how my lip felt. It was especially difficult in winter because of
the dry heat. I would get up and smile, and if I had had a hard concert the night
before, where my lip was very tense, then it might have gotten dry and actually
cracked. I lived in fear of one square inch of my body.''
Trumpet players undoubtedly have been living with those fears for a long time,
as the trumpet changed in size, shape and sophistication, falling in and out of public
fancy. The Baroque trumpet, for example, was famous, but it more or less died away
in the Classical period, and a new instrument - the keyed trumpet with saxophone-
like keys - came on the scene. The valve trumpet, invented in the early part of the
19th century, was not used widely until after 1850, and then it vied for attention with
the low F trumpet, the long trumpet and the cornet. The trumpet as we know it
didn't come into real prominence until about 1920.
Today, with renewed interest in the instrument and a proliferation of school
bands, the trumpet is flourishing. For the soloist, however, the major obstacles,
according to Mr. Schwarz, are not only the repertory limitations but the opportunity
to perform in this country.
''We have many great orchestras and most have truly great trumpet players,'' he
explains. ''There's a difference between a solo player and an orchestra player, but
many orchestral players do play solo, and they would be insulted if soloists were
brought in. It's a very touchy thing to do. One has to become famous before it's
allowed.
''Maurice Andre, because of his box-office draw and fame, can play with almost
any orchestra. James Galway or Rampal could play and the first flute players

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probably wouldn't be insulted. But there are few others.''

Would he, then encourage trumpeters to go solo? ''Yes,'' he says. ''I've been
encouraging Stephen Burns a great deal.'' He also is high on Wynton Marsalis, a
young mainstream jazz trumpeter who will perform in a classical music concert on
Dec. 4 at Alice Tully Hall.
''I think between Stephen and Wynton there's a real chance for the soloist in this
country to take off,'' he says. ''Until now, there has been no one but Maurice Andre.''
Mr. Andre is asked if personality is a key to a solo trumpeter's success.
''Yes, I think so,'' he says. ''It takes a strong personality to make an impact with
the trumpet. You're like a matador in a bull ring. I see flutists and oboists go on the
stage gingerly. If you do that with the trumpet you're finished. You have to go on as a
winner.''
A version of this article appears in print on November 27, 1983, on Page 2002019 of the National edition
with the headline: MAURICE ANDRE GAVE THE TRUMPET SOLO STATUS.

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