Trumpet Concerto

Vasil Kazandjiev finished his Trumpet Concerto on 29 June 1954 as the annual examination piece of his course at the Academy of Music. Its third movement, the rondo, had been written earlier, in his third year in Pancho Vladigerov's class; he added the outer two movements later, without telling his teacher. The concerto is dedicated to his fellow student Andrey Genov. Vasil Kostov gave the first performance with the Sofia Philharmonic under Konstantin Iliev in Plovdiv in 1959. It was his first work in the concerto form, and Vladigerov's presence is still audible in it, though the young composer's own character comes through strongly: vital energy, spontaneous feeling, and a driving rhythm that lets the soloist show everything the instrument can do. The three movements run from an energetic first, alternating rhythmic drive with broad melody, through a nostalgic and songlike slow movement, to a rhapsodic finale carrying echoes of folk intonation.