Ballade pour trombone et piano | Ballade pour trombone et petit orchestre

Ballade pour trombone et piano | Ballade pour trombone et petit orchestre
Ballade for trombone and piano | Ballade for trombone and small orchestra

Year of composition

1940 | 1941

Duration

7'

Scored for

trombone and piano (or tenor saxophone B♭ and piano)
Version for trombone and small orchestra (1941): 2 2 2 2 - 2 2 2 0 - timp. - piano - strings

Publication information

Universal Edition: original version (UE32359); version for trombone and small orchestra (UE13546)

Commentary

Ballade for trombone and piano or small orchestra
The two Ballades pour trombone and pour piano are exact contemporaries. I had hardly finished the Ballade pour piano, at the end of 1939, when I was asked to compose a work which could be used as a compulsory piece for trombone at the Geneva Competition for Musical Performers: lasting 7 minutes. I was fortunate to be well acquainted with the excellent trombone player of the Romand Orchestra, Thomas Morley. He had shown me all the secrets of his beloved instrument whose noble timbre I especially like, but also the archaic character of its construction, entirely void of mechanics: a simple metal tube which can be lengthened by means of a slide. As a result of my thorough knowledge of the instrument, I could make it sing or use my fantasy for virtuosic elements. This ballad with its free form has become study material at conservatoires just about everywhere, solo repertoire for the trombone being scarce. Written first for piano accompaniment, I orchestrated it later with the help of Ernst Ansermet who taught me so much in this context.
 The Ballade pour piano, composed freely, is almost entirely based on one long melody played very simply by the piano at the beginning. It almost disappears, hidden by the ornamentation around it; but it is always present like a unifying thread.
 Why then this title of Ballade, so often used in my works, Ballade pour saxophone 1938, pour flûte 1939, pour piano 1939, pour trombone 1940 and later pour violoncelle 1949? It is because I found in this title the expression which suited these instrumental works with their free form and narrative character. It is not a Ballade in the primary sense of music for ‘dance’ [pour ‘baller’], nor in the sense of a poetic form with a dedication ‘Prince,…’ like the Ballades of Villon. It is for the romantic sense of the term that I chose the title Ballade, as in the Ballades d’Ossian. There it evokes something epic; a story which is being told. It is this sense that should guide the listener in these two Ballades, for trombone and for piano.

Text by Frank Martin from A propos de… commentaires de Frank Martin sur ses œuvres (Neuchâtel, 1984) | English translation by Rachel Ann Morgan
(published in Record booklet Jecklin-Disco 529)

Premiere

World première original version for trombone and piano: Geneva, September 1940. Concours national d’exécution musicale
World première version for trombone and small orchestra: Geneva, 26 January 1942. Thomas Morley, trombone; Ernest Ansermet, conductor

Recordings (selective list)

  • Version for trombone and small orchestra
    ‘Frank Martin dirige Frank Martin’
    Armin Rosin, trombone
    Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne
    Frank Martin, conductor
    (Recording: 1971)
    Jecklin-Disco JD 529-2 ℗ + © 1989 (FMS021)

  • Version for trombone and piano
    ‘I was like WOW!’
    Jörgen van Rijen, trombone
    Paolo Giacometti, piano
    Channel Classics CCS SA 26909 © + ℗ 2009 (FMS132)

  • Version for trombone and piano
    Christian Lindberg, trombone
    Roland Pöntinen, piano
    BIS -CD-71 © 1983 + ℗ 1996 (FMS104)

  • Version for trombone and small orchestra
    ‘Concertos pour Trombone’
    Jacques Mauger, trombone
    Orchestre Symphonique Français
    Laurent Petitgirard, conductor
    MPO: OSF 49022 ℗ 1994 (FMS075)

  • Version for trombone and small orchestra
    ‘Frank Martin - Ballades’
    Ian Bousfield, trombone
    London Philharmonic Orchestra
    Matthias Bamert, conductor
    CHANDOS CHAN 9380 ℗ + © 1995 (FMS114)

  • Version for trombone and small orchestra
    Branimir Slokar, trombone
    Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne
    Jean-Marie Auberson, conductor
    Claves CD 50-8407 ℗ + © 1987 (FMS033)

  • Version for tenor saxophone and small orchestra
    ‘Frank Martin and the saxophone’
    Arno Bornkamp, tenor saxophone
    Radio Kamer Filharmonie
    Ed Spanjaard, conductor
    OTR C12095 ℗ 2012 (FMS003)

  • Version for trombone and small orchestra
    ‘Trombone Odyssey’
    Christian Lindberg, trombone
    Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
    Leif Segerstam, conductor
    BIS CD-538 ℗ + © 1990/1991 + ℗ 1992 (FMS081)

  • Version for trombone and piano
    Stewart Taylor, trombone
    Bart Berman, piano
    GALLO CD-633 ℗ + © 1991 (FMS 182)

  • Version for trombone and piano
    ‘Trombone in Europa’
    Thomas Horch, trombone
    Fritz Walter-Lindqvist, piano
    audite 95.435 ℗ + © 1994 (FMS 200)

  • Version for trombone and piano
    David Bruchez, trombone
    Arianne Haering, piano
    Musiques Suisses MGB CTS-M 89 ℗ + © 2004 (FMS 205)

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