Recording of the Month
Life Force Peter Moore
‘Moore displays an eloquence and nobility that one might have thought impossible except by the human voice’
the Fauré is one of the star items here, coloured gently with a distinctly Frenchstyle vibrato that appears to carry with it the aroma of Gauloises and Absinthe in the manner of Marcel Galiègue. This music cries out for a heavenly legato and seamless transitions between pitch registers, something that Moore negotiates effortlessly, whilst timing and shaping the music’s beguiling contours with vocal rapture – one can readily sense the meaning of Romain Bussine’s sensuous flow of rhyming couplets without hearing the actual words.
Kol Nidrei benefits from the trombone’s enhanced projection and clarity by comparison with the cello’s lower register, allowing the music’s declamatory essence to emerge in the full brightness of day. As Bruch’s heartfelt invention gently unfolds, it is Moore’s mellow cushioning of the beginnings of phrases that proves especially seductive, creating the curious impression of the sound having been generated before you actually
hear it. No less striking is his pin-point tuning and unblemished tonal purity, reminiscent of Christhard Gössling, principal trombone of the Berlin Philharmonic since 1984. Another cello favourite – the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s Op. 19 Sonata, complemented by accompanist James Baillieu’s melting phrasing – is a triumph of breath control, with the composer’s gently ecstatic invention seemingly gliding on warm air currents.
Perhaps the greatest revelation comes with Brahms’s late songs, which here benefit from a keener tonal and interpretative focus than many singers have brought to these elusive distillations of the composer’s creative essence over the years. Based on Biblical texts and composed in the wake of his beloved Clara Schumann suffering a debilitating stroke, the occasional vocal awkwardnesses of Brahms’s uncompromising soundworld are encompassed by Moore with an eloquence and nobility that one might have thought almost impossible except by the human voice. Even Mahler’s iconic ‘Urlicht’ sounds utterly convincing, enhanced by Baillieu’s radiant pianism and first-rate engineering.
Moore’s dazzling performance of Friedebald Gräfe’s Trombone Concerto is guaranteed to blow away any remaining musical cobwebs, yet arguably the stand-out item is Schumann’s three Op. 73 Fantasiestücke, which emerge sounding as freshly minted as the two days in which they were (miraculously) composed. To finish, one of band supremo Arthur Pryor’s delightful miniatures, the waltzlike Thoughts of Love, thrown off by Moore and Baillieu with an infectious bonhomie that brings the curtain down with a deliciously virtuoso flourish.
Brahms’s late songs are played with a nobility one might think only possible when sung