reviews
MARK O'KEEFFE - SOLO MUSIC FOR TRUMPET
DCD34049 – KNIGHT ERRANT
FIVE STARS
Delphian has done it again. In this extraordinary collection by the enterprising Edinburgh label of new music for solo trumpet, Mark O’Keeffe – principal trumpet with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – displays incredible virtuosity. Whoever would have expected such diversity and sheer entertainment from one single brass instrument?
The secret is twofold. On the one hand O’Keeffe performs literally out of the box – howling, humming and hollering as a vocal theatrical adjunct to the earthly and unearthly effects he produces on his trumpet. Matched to music of real worth – most of it by living Scots composers – the entire package is a thrill a minute.
Humour is never lacking in John Maxwell Geddes’s music, which O’Keeffe relates with easeful brilliance – not least the equine tribute to the fictitious Glasgow cowboy Lobey Dosser in Resident Villain or The Reform of Rank Bajin, one of several Geddes solo trumpet works inspired by Glasgow statues.
If the intentions of other works on the disc by Eddie McGuire, Rory Boyle (the one track featuring an additional performer, mezzo-soprano, Annique Burns), Peter Maxwell-Davies, William Sweeney and Mark-Anthony Turnage are in any way more serious, the entertainment value remains sizzlingly hot. O’Keeffe is a player in a million. And something of a music comedian.
(Kenneth Walton The Scotsman 20th April 2007)
MARK O'KEEFFE
KNIGHT ERRANT
(Delphian Records)
FOUR STARS
Another feather in the cap for Delphian with the blinding brilliance of its new CD of music for solo trumpet featuring BBC SSO principal Mark O’Keeffe, a tireless champion of new music. All the big names are here: McGuire, Sweeney, Boyle, Maxwell Davies, Turnage, and all, with instantly recognizable, idiomatic music in an array of styles. But above all, this disc is a wonderful portrait of John Maxwell Geddes, whose genius for characterisation, from solemnity to elemental bellowing to slurping drunkenness (via Handel’s Messiah), through the nostalgia of music hall and the outrageous hi-jinks of Rank Bajin, is represented in six glorious compositions.
(Michael Tumelty The Herald April 21st 2007)
MARK O’KEEFFE
Knight Errant
(Delphian Records)
FOUR STARS
The Edinburgh-based label is doing its fair share to support contemporary Scottish composition. The Edinburgh Quartet’s fine recent disc of new Scottish string quartets, The Cold Dancer, is followed by this solo outing from the BBC SSO’s principal trumpet, Mark O’Keeffe. His Creative Scotland project with Theatre Cryptic a couple of years ago demonstrated his affinity with contemporary idioms as well as his extended technical prowess on his instrument, and this disc follows suit.
O’Keeffe plays music by five significant composers on the Scottish scene, including a series of six pieces written for him by John Maxwell Geddes, and music by Eddie McGuire, Rory Boyle (a piece which also features Belgian mezzo-soprano Annique Burms), William Sweeney and Peter Maxwell Davies. A short work by Mark-Anthony Turnage completes a fascinating and very varied collection, and if just under 80 minutes of solo trumpet seems a bit much to swallow whole very often, it’s perfect for dipping into individual works.
(Kenny Mathieson The List April 26-May 10th 2007)
Mark O'Keeffe
Knight Errant: Solo Music for Trumpet
(Delphian)
Freed from the terrifying complexities of contemporary harmony, wild and breathless melody breaks free here. No other instrument has the expressive solo range of the trumpet as played by the golden-tongued Irish virtuoso O’Keefe, who seizes the ear with brilliant tone and a warm exuberant jig in McGuire’s Prelude, foghorn greeting and rhythmic zip in Maxwell Davies’s Litany. There is darting certainty in Turnage’s Aria, bugle-like alert in Boyle’s Ceremony with the well-matched mezzo Annique Burns, wah-wah mute jazz in Sweeney’s Paraphrase and witty carnival cheer in Geddes’s Muse Lane, one of several amusing sound depictions of Glasgow statuary. There is even a reference to the brass players’ propensity for drink. A great blow.
(Rick Jones The Times May 26th, 2007)
BBC Radio 3 CD Review, 12 May 2007
Another new recording for brass soloist ends with a work by Mark-Anthony Turnage. This is An Aria (with dancing) played by trumpeter Mark O’Keeffe.
[An Aria (with dancing) played]
An Aria (with dancing): music by Mark-Anthony Turnage, performed by Mark O’Keeffe, and recorded in an acoustic that really helps to reunite the broken chords of Turnage’s composition to produce the aria before the dance elements. And that’s the last item from Mark O’Keeffe’s solo trumpet recital.
While I’d normally approach the idea of a solo trumpet disc with a degree of caution, I found this a rewarding recital. It’s partly O’Keeffe’s sound: that bright, bold and fiercely focused rapier of a tone. The works themselves, many of them written for him, exploit many sides of his skills from the sustained stillness of the first part of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Litany for a ruined chapel between sheep and shore to the breakneck virtuosity and drunken humour of John Maxwell Geddes’s transcendental study. O Keeffe’s finely honed comic timing is an important part of the mixture as well. Most of the music’s by living Scots composers and it’s a solo trumpet disc I’d not hesitate to recommend to non-trumpeters. It’s named after one of the works by John Maxwell Geddes, Knight Errant, and it’s from Delphian.