Trumpeter
Lucienne Renaudin Vary
describes her 2024 release
Jardins d'Hiver
this way: her idea is "to recreate a cozy atmosphere, as if she invites her fans to a hygge home concert." She has said that her model is British trumpeter
Alison Balsom
, whose playing has more of an edge but who does forge a kind of personal connection with her listeners.
Vary
offers a variety of material that includes popular songs and pieces inspired by vernacular material. The several pieces from the Hispanic world -- from
Manuel de Falla
's
Siete canciones populares españolas
and Venezuelan
Efrain Oscher
Rapsodia latina
-- do not quite lend themselves to being scaled down like this, but there's an attractive mixture of pieces from various eras; one does have the feeling of a home concert at which
effectively mixes favorites by
Bach
and
Vivaldi
with pieces that she herself enjoys. Listeners can decide for themselves how hygge the results are. The popular songs are not the album's best feature; there's no reason all of them should have been American, and
adds an indistinct and ill-advised vocal line of her own to the
Frank Sinatra
hit "
Everything Happens to Me
." The
Orchestre de Chambre de Paris
under conductor
Sascha Goetzel
does a good job of keeping up with
's shifting demands, and overall, this is an interesting entrant in the growing almost-but-not-quite-Christmas-album sector. The release is also available under the English title
Winter Gardens
. ~ James Manheim