Highly Accomplished Paul Neebe plays American trumpet concertos, reviewed by PATRIC STANDFORD Albany Records    TROY805

Paul Neebe is a highly accomplished trumpet soloist as well as fulfilling commitments as principal trumpet of three orchestras in Virginia. He has also served composers well by recently commissioning several to write concertante works for him, and the performances of other concertos on this CD suggest that any composer should be delighted at the request.

Carl Roskott (born 1953) is a conductor and composer and is a member of the University of Virginia Music Faculty. His Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra was written in 1993 and is a lively three movement piece with potentially effective ideas that seem not to survive very long, struggling to keep going, yet the orchestration is colourful and overall impression attractive [listen -- track 1, 0:00-1:05].

Edward Green's Concerto in C has been revised from its early form in 2001 to this final version and has an appropriate buoyancy, its slower central movement evoking an amorous atmosphere [listen -- track 5, 2:37-3:35]. Born in 1951, Green teaches at Manhattan School of Music.

Robert J Bradshaw is the youngest of the composers represented here, born in 1970. His Sonata for Trumpet and Strings was written in 2003, has four short movements, and is in an accessible and imaginative idiom, at times atmospheric [listen -- track 8, 0:27-1:01] and in the final movement more expansive [listen -- track 10, 0:00-1:26].

Frederick Tillis is of an older generation, born 1930 and long recognised as a prolific composer using jazz influences intermingled with his background classical style. His Spiritual Fantasy No 6 is a theme and series of continuous variations on the spiritual Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass, exploring the trumpet well with idiomatic challenge. After the imaginative elaborations of the theme and a short solo cadenza, it ends peacefully with a question left in the air [listen -- track 11, 8:26-9:50].

Nothing alarming or innovative about these very capable and conservative pieces that all deserve to be added to a repertoire short of good middle road repertoire, and which Paul Neebe and conductor David Wiley are doing well to expand.

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Record Box is Music & Vision's regular series of shorter CD reviews