Trumpet Sonata

Stefan Heucke (b.1959) has composed in a variety of genres and received commissions from Bremerhaven Philharmonic Orchestra, Bochum Symphony Orchestra, ARD International Music Competition, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the piano duo Grau/Schumacher. He has been a composer-in-residence of the Niederrheinische Sinfoniker Krefeld-Mönchengladbach, Philharmonisches Orchester Bremerhaven and Staunton Music Festival.
The Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, Op. 56, by was written in spring 2009 in Italy as commissioned work for trumpeter Griseldis Lichdi and her partner Anette Fischer-Lichdi. The subtitle of Mahler’s famous Wunderhorn song, “Where the beautiful trumpets blow,” forms both the semantic and the musical background to the sonata. The song tells the melancholy story of a young soldier saying goodbye to his sweetheart. He goes off to war haunted by the words of a deathly prophecy: “Everywhere there blow the beautiful trumpets, there is my house, my house made of green grass.”
Structured as a 15-minute single movement composition, the piece unfolds in ten contrasting sections that come from completely different places and moods. Mahler’s influence slowly approaches and recedes, and in the end it recurs in only slightly varied guise. Elements of sonata form, multi-part song form and variation combine into a large-scale rhapsody, which interprets the numerous contents and musical levels of the song in a diverse and exciting manner.

(c) Jason Stell and Stefan Heucke