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For two Eb trumpets and piano
Duration: 8'
I first came into contact with Chris Belluscio in 2025 via our mutual friend Dominic Giardino when I was working on a transcription of the Nicolai trumpet Concertino. Chris was happy to answer my questions and also shared with me two unpublished manuscripts he had acquired in 2021 from an Italian jewelry and antiques dealer that were at one time in the library of the Philharmonic Society of Faella. These two manuscripts preserved nineteenth-century fantasies for E-flat alto valve trumpet and wind band in full score.
This manuscript, titled Fantasia a due trombe del celebre maestro Ermanno Picchi, is dated November 8, 1890. Picchi (1811-1856) was a composer, theorist, and director of the Florence Conservatory beginning in 1852. Picchi has many extant works, including several duos that feature wind instruments and military band. The score is signed as "fatto da Giuseppe Guarnacci", likely indicating that Guarnacci prepared the score - although it is possible that Guarnacci composed the piece on themes by Picchi. If the work was indeed composed by Picchi, it would represent a somewhat early solo Italian work for the valved trumpet versus the keyed trumpet - which is evident from the chromatic fluency and extreme low range in the part. This edition is intended to be used as a playable piano reduction of the wind band original.
[Program notes adapted from Chris Belluscio's abstract the Historic Brass Society's 2023 Sixth International Romantic Brass Symposium: Romantic Brass in Context - https://www.hkb-interpretation.ch/rbic]