Duration: 5 minutes

Description: Philippe Gaubert (1879–1941) composed Cantabile et Scherzetto for B-flat cornet and piano in 1909 as the required morceau de concours for that year’s cornet competition at the Paris Conservatoire, an institution whose annual examinations generated an important body of French solo wind repertoire; the score is dedicated to Jean-Joseph Mellet (1843–1910), professor of cornet at the Conservatoire, and was published in Paris that same year. Designed to test contrasting aspects of the performer’s musicianship and technique, the work opens with a lyrical Cantabile in 6/8, requiring sustained tone, expressive phrasing, and agility in its ornamental passages, before turning to a lively Scherzetto in 2/4 whose playful triplet figures, rapid scales, and triple-tonguing culminate in a brilliant fanfare-like conclusion. The Conservatoire returned to it as a competition piece in 1928, evidence of its continuing usefulness in the French brass pedagogical tradition. Although Gaubert is remembered especially as one of the leading French flutists, conductors, and flute composers of his generation, Cantabile et Scherzetto has enjoyed an independent life in the cornet and trumpet literature: it has received numerous professional recordings and it continues to appear in recitals, competitions, and advanced study as a compact but demanding example of the elegant French morceau de concours tradition. Reprint edition.

• M315691 / 36-M315691 CANTABILE ET SCHERZETT SOLO/PNO $7.95Buy Now