The Sonata for Trumpet and Piano by Aida Petrovna Isakova (1940-2012) is notable for being the newest work on this album and also for been one of very few works in this genre composed by a woman. Isakova was a concert pianist, composer and pedagogue. After graduating from
the Moscow Conservatory, she taught at the Alma-Ata State Conservatory in Kazakhstan, beginning in 1964. In 1994, she moved back to Moscow, and was invited to join the faculty of the Ippolitov-Ivanov State Music Institute. The composer of a symphony, several ballets, operettas and several concertos, including one for Piano, Trumpet and Orchestra (1981), Isakova wrote the Trumpet Sonata in 1986 for the Conservatory’s trumpet professor, Yury Klushkin. It remained unpublished until 2009.

The first movement opens and closes with a somber melody in the muted trumpet. The main theme of the Allegro is angular, with motor- like accompaniment in the piano. The secondary theme is in a quasi-jazz ballad style. The second movement also starts with the slow and soft trumpet motive, here developing into a slow waltz, which gives way to a whimsical dance somewhat reminiscent of music from Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella and the music of Francis Poulenc. The last movement starts attacca and shifts between 5/8 and 6/8 meters. It features numerous fast double-tongued runs in the trumpet part on top of ostinato figures in the piano. Driven forward in toccata-like fashion, it steadily builds excitement throughout the movement, ending with the wild and insistent glissandi rips in the trumpet part, ascending to the final high C. Isakova, particularly interested in differing timbres and more so than the composers discussed earlier, requires the trumpeter to employ no less than three mutes: straight, cup and harmon.

Take a look at sample pages of the solo and score provided to the left and then click above for a complete download of the music. Included in this download is the solo part, piano score, and MP3 recordings of the entire piece as played by Russian trumpeter Iskander Akhmadullin.