The earliest work is the tautly constructed Sonata which Maxwell Davies wrote for Elgar Howarth in 1955. This remains a fiendishly difficult work for both trumpet and piano though Ashton and Lenehan are clearly thinking beyond technical anxieties. This performance glistens with cleanly tongued leaps, a subdued eloquence of fleeting lyricism and delicate Webernesque colour dabs which dovetail the second and third movements. This is highly accomplished playing.
GRAMOPHONE