(2026) Zimmermann, Eötvös, Gruber, Saunier, Sinfonia Varsovia, Hermanto

2026-03-27T13:09:03+01:00

The new trumpet

The spectacular blossoming of the trumpet concerto in the second half of the 20th century was directly inspired by the tradition of jazz trumpet playing, and by the genius of Louis Armstrong in particular[i]. Armstrong, and other jazz trumpeters like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis after him, introduced an entirely new way of trumpet playing that proved game-changing in the classical world as well.

It will hardly come as a surprise, then, that all three concertos on this CD have explicit connections to jazz, while speaking the language (or languages) of contemporary classical music. The three works, and their composers, are also connected to one another through personal channels. Pétér Eötvös studied composition with Bernd Alois Zimmermann. As a conductor, he recorded both HK Gruber’s Aerial and his own Jet Stream–with Håkan Hardenberger as soloist. Hardenberger, for whom Aerial was written and Jet Stream revised, was also one of those responsible for reviving Zimmermann’s Nobody knows de trouble I see after decades of neglect. This trio of concertos certainly deserves to be heard side by side; as a group, they attest to the wide expressive range of the trumpet at the intersection of the classical and jazz traditions. In recent years, younger players like Clément Saunier have taken on these important works, which have now truly entered the trumpet repertoire as they have found an ever-growing number of new champions among players, and new fans among listeners.

It is significant that none of the three compositions is called simply “Trumpet Concerto.” Each has a descriptive title that may well be called “programmatic “–although not in the sense of 19th-century program music which was, in most cases, inspired by pre-existent literary or artistic sources. Our three works are programmatic in a different way. Zimmermann’s concerto, the earliest of the three, uses a well-known spiritual–a musical source–and takes it where it has never gone before. The two more recent works are based on extra-musical images and ideas that are the composers’ own. Through a multiplicity of allusions to other music, each composer created a special associative network, and, by placing the borrowed elements in new contexts, each work communicates something highly original.

Jazz, while clearly at the center of all three “programs,” meant something different to each composer. These Europeans have not simply written music influenced by American jazz, as Stravinsky, Ravel and so many others had done a hundred years ago. They offer, instead, their own emotional responses to the art form. Zimmermann’s piece is, more than anything, a personal meditation on the spiritual. Gruber uses jazz rhythms to evoke a kind of apocalyptic, end-of-the-world vision, while in Eötvös’s work, jazz appears as a mysterious new world in the process of being discovered. Dr. Peter Laki

[Read more in the booklet]

[i] See John Wallace, “The Emancipation of the Trumpet: Louis Armstrong, and the influence of jazz on 20th Century Trumpet Performance and Composition. Changing the course of history,” Scottish Music Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (2007), 68-82.

Clément Saunier

Clément Saunier is one of the most active French classical trumpeters on the national and international scene. A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire (CRR) and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, he studied with Pierre Gillet, Clément Garrec, Gérard Boulanger and Jens McManama, before further training with Pierre Thibault and Vladimir Kafelnikov.

His appearances at major international competitions have been rewarded with several top prizes, including Città di Porcia (Italy), the Prague Spring Competition, the Jeju Brass Competition (South Korea), the Théo Charlier Competition in Brussels, the Maurice André Competition in Paris and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

In 2013, he was appointed principal trumpet of the Ensemble intercontemporain. In this role, he collaborates with leading composers and conductors of our time. He performs and premieres a wide range of works for trumpet, including the Requiem by Hans Werner Henze, Mysteries of the Macabre by György Ligeti, Sequenza X by Luciano Berio, Metal Extensions and Metallics by Yan Maresz, the NONcerto by Richard Ayres, Doppelgänger and Evil Twin by Yann Robin, Wild Winged One by Liza Lim, Triptyque Bleu by Hèctor Parra, Gnomon by José Miguel Fernández, and Soliloquy IX by Thomas Simaku.

He regularly appears in major international venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Centre Pompidou, as well as at Carnegie Hall in New York, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the philharmonic halls in Berlin, Moscow, and Hamburg.

As a soloist, he performs with numerous orchestras and festivals in Europe and abroad, while also maintaining an active career in chamber music and recital. He is a founding member of the Trombamania ensemble and the Paris Brass Quintet.

His solo discography reflects the diversity of his artistic path, from Baroque repertoire to contemporary works. It includes the recording of Henri Tomasi’s concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra, concertos by Ida Gotkovsky, Charles Chaynes, Lalo Schiffrin, Roger Boutry and Anthony Girard, as well as the album Direction (2017), devoted to works for solo trumpet by Fedele, Maxwell Davies, Pintscher, Scelsi, Henze and Takemitsu. These recordings have been released on the Cristal Records, Maguelone, Klarthe and Corélia labels.

A committed pedagogue, Clément Saunier is professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon and at the Paris Conservatoire (CRR), and regularly gives masterclasses at leading international institutions.

Since 1998, he has developed numerous artistic and educational projects dedicated to brass instruments. He is notably the founder of the international festivals Le Son des Cuivres in Mamers and the Surgères Brass Festival, as well as the Surgères Brass and Percussion Academy, which gathers several thousand festival-goers each summer.

He develops and performs on instruments by Antoine Courtois.

clementsaunier.com

Sinfonia Varsovia

Sinfonia Varsovia has been an ambassador of Polish musical culture since its inception. Its international travels include thousands of meetings with conductors, composers, soloists, and finally – audiences. For nearly 40 years, the Orchestra has been a regular guest on foreign and domestic stages, providing listeners with an unforgettable musical experience.

The ensemble continues the tradition of the Polish Chamber Orchestra (PCO) founded in 1972 from which it evolved as new members came on. The impulse for expansion was provided in 1984 by the arrival of the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin who took over as the first guest conductor. “Working with no other orchestra gave me as much satisfaction as my work, as soloist and conductor, with Sinfonia Varsovia”, he said in interviews.

Soon after Sinfonia Varsovia began its world tour, performing in the world’s most prestigious concert halls such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Barbican Centre (London), Wiener Musikverein (Vienna), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Suntory Hall (Tokyo) and Herkulessaal (Munich). The Orchestra has performed under the baton of such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Witold Lutosławski, Lorin Maazel, Emmanuel Krivine, Jerzy Maksymiuk, and Krzysztof Penderecki (who served as musical director and afterwards the artistic director of the Orchestra between 1997 and 2020), as well as with soloists including Mstislav Rostropovich, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Alfred Brendel, Martha Argerich, and Piotr Anderszewski.

Sinfonia Varsovia has played over 4,000 concerts all over the world and made over 300 records, including for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, Sony, and Warner. The recorded repertoire includes works from the 18th century to the present day. A special place in the Orchestra’s concert program is occupied by the works of Polish composers, such as Chopin, Penderecki, Paderewski, Lutosławski, Górecki, and Kilar. The Orchestra has premiered numerous works, including those by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Paweł Mykietyn, and Krzysztof Penderecki.

sinfoniavarsovia.org

Wilson Hermanto

Praised for his deep musicality, natural authority, communicative energy and elegance, Wilson Hermanto has been the Principal Guest Conductor of the chamber orchestra Cameristi della Scala since 2017. During the 2025-26 season, he returns to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, this time with the Cameristi della Scala, having made his debut there the previous year with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Further concerts in Switzerland and abroad highlight the connection between Wilson Hermanto and the Milanese ensemble. During the same season, he also works with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala and the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra.

With the Cameristi della Scala, in addition to the concerts at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Wilson Hermanto took the orchestra to perform in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey and Hong Kong and was also invited back to perform at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. In recent seasons, he collaborated with renowned soloists such as Veronika Eberle, Simon Trpčeski, Daniel Müller-Schott, Maxim Rysanov and Pierre Génisson. Wilson Hermanto also worked with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra in Wrocław. Since 2022, he is the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Vevey Spring Classic festival together with the cellist Daniel Müller-Schott.

As a guest conductor, Wilson Hermanto conducted Bernstein “Candide” with the Baltic State Opera in Poland and worked with Sinfonia Varsovia, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Metz, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra, Argovia Philharmonic, Chilean National Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra, North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala and Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Wilson Hermanto performed with several of France’s major orchestras such as Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, and Orchestre National de Bretagne. Around the globe he has worked with the Cleveland Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken, Prague Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, NDR Radio Philharmonie Hannover, Ulster Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Contrechamps and many others.

With a wide repertoire spanning from the Baroque period to the music of our time, Wilson Hermanto has worked with many renowned contemporary composers such as Zygmunt Krauze, Bruno Mantovani, Jörg Widmann, Agata Zubel, Thuridur Jónsdóttir, Helmut Lachenmann, Eric Montalbetti, Giovanni Sollima, Magdalena Długosz, H.K. Gruber, Matteo Franceschini, Enno Poppe, Teoniki Rożynek, Wojciech Błazejczyk and Lowell Liebermann. Among the soloists with whom Wilson Hermanto has worked together include Maxim Vengerov, Lang Lang, Francesco Piemontesi, Gautier Capuçon, David Fray, Till Fellner, Alexei Volodin, Sergei Babayan, Carolin Widmann, Alina Pogostkina, Nils Mönkemeyer, Kian Soltani, Richard Galliano, Radek Baborák, Michael Barenboim and the Trio Wanderer.

Born in Indonesia and a long-time resident of Switzerland, Wilson Hermanto graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. After earning a bachelor’s degree in violin, he obtained a master’s degree in conducting from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with the Swedish maestro Sixten Ehrling. As a close mentor during more than a decade, Sir Colin Davis took a keen interest in Wilson Hermanto’s musical development. He was also one of the last students in Carlo Maria Giulini’s conducting class at the Scuola Musica di Fiesole in Italy. In addition, he studied at the Tanglewood Music Center with Seiji Ozawa and at the Lucerne Festival Academy on invitation of Pierre Boulez.

Wilson Hermanto and the Cameristi della Scala released an album in late 2024 featuring Beethoven Symphony No. 2 and Mozart Symphony No. 35, known as the «Haffner» Symphony (CD Claves 3096).

wilsonhermanto.fr