Simon Höfele - Standards (2020)

“Try something new” is Simon Höfele’s motto. Inquisitive, intrepid and full of passion for his instrument, on his new album “Standards” he turns to the trumpet in all its many facets, sweeping his audience along with him with his audacious and clever programmes and thrilling playing. As a “Rising Star” of the European Concert Hall Organisation and one of Konzerthaus Dortmund’s “young wild things”, Simon Höfele has centred his debut album on the Berlin Classics label around the key repertoire for trumpet and the quintessence of his time as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.

“A quite primeval Love of Music”

He began playing the trumpet when he was seven, in a family full of woodwind musicians: his father a bassoonist, his mother playing the piccolo flute, one uncle an oboist and the other a clarinettist. A little toy trumpet hanging on the wall was the key to his ambition: “I blew into it and just knew I wanted to play the trumpet.” Since then much time has elapsed, yet in the scale of things maybe not so much time; at just 25 years of age, Simon Höfele is one of a young generation of musicians whose hallmark is one of experimenting and pushing the seemingly fixed boundaries of established genres. He has a weakness for analogue photography, is involved in encouraging new young musicians, and enjoys playing jazz as much as classical music. From 2017 to 2019 he was New Generation Artist with BBC Radio 3. Accompanied by two BBC orchestras, he is releasing an album which may serve as a memento of that period in time. At the same time, it is interesting that an artist who made a name for himself recently playing contemporary music by the likes of Matthias Pintscher, Olga Neuwirth and Toshio Hosokawa, as well as performing Miles Davis’s “Sketches of Spain”, has now turned to the classic repertoire for his instrument. “I simply wanted to do it because these works are as close to my heart as all the others,” Höfele explains. “I never thought ‘Oh no, not Haydn again.’ What’s going on inside me in these recordings is the pure and simple love of music.”

Haydn, Hummel, Copland, Arutyunyan

The album’s programme ranges through works from Joseph Haydn via Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Aaron Copland to Alexander Arutyunyan. It spans 150 years, from 1800 to 1950, and covers three continents. Each of the works shines a light on a different facet of the trumpet: brilliant flourishes in the Hummel and Haydn, long, string-like lines and the most finely nuanced levels of volume in the Copland, and light-as-a-feather through to powerful virtuosity in the Arutyunyan. All of the works have been recorded countless times before, and yet Simon Höfele brings an entirely individual new aspect to each of them. “But if I believe that some people might like my recordings and get pleasure out of them, then that is good enough for me.” His interpretation will sound like no other “not for the sake of making it sound different,” he says, “but because I simply feel the music differently.” Accompanying him for the Hummel and Haydn is the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra of Glasgow under the baton of Duncan Ward, and in the Copland and Arutyunyan the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Cardiff.

Tracklist:

1. Trumpet Concerto in E Major, S.49: I. Allegro con spirito (9:26)
2. Trumpet Concerto in E Major, S.49: II. Andante (4:25)
3. Trumpet Concerto in E Major, S.49: III. Rondo. Allegro (3:44)
4. Trumpet Concerto in E-Flat Major, Hob. VIIe:1: I. Allegro (6:28)
5. Trumpet Concerto in E-Flat Major, Hob. VIIe:1: II. Andante (3:08)
6. Trumpet Concerto in E-Flat Major, Hob. VIIe:1: III. Finale Allegro (4:29)
7. Quiet City (9:39)
8. Trumpet Concerto in A-Flat Major (Andante maestoso) (1:21)
9. Trumpet Concerto in A-Flat Major (Allegro energico) (6:59)
10. Trumpet Concerto in A-Flat Major (Meno mosso) (4:44)
11. Trumpet Concerto in A-Flat Major (Tempo I. Allegro energico) (3:52)