The Lower Machen Festival played host to a trumpet playing legend on Wednesday evening. Crispian Steele -Perkins is one of the world’s most respected Baroque/Classical players and will have been heard by much of the population(whether they know it or not) on any of a range of T.V. adverts and programmes. His approach to the instrument is far from that often associated with the modern instrument. The tone is supremely refined and the skill seems to lie not in how loudly he can play but in how quietly.

The evening was structured as a potted history of the instrument and all its near relatives. I counted 13 instruments altogether though there may have been more. There were various valveless trumpets, the sweet-toned cornett (as opposed to the much later valved cornet which was also heard ) played music of the Renaissance, the keyed trumpet was used to demonstrate part of Haydn’s trumpet concerto before the last movement was then performed on a modern instrument. The flugel horn was used for a medley of Burt Bacharach songs, and I have never heard the garden hose played as musically (here in Handel’s ‘Water Music’).

Throughout this there was tremendous wit and charm and some marvellous playing, not least in terms of the stamina required , as Crispian Steele-Perkins played for two hours.

The evening ended with the maestro in his element on a Baroque trumpet with the supremely rousing trumpet voluntary by blind English composer John Stanley.