Petrich - Zatten Concerto for Trumpet and Piano

Zatten was commissioned in 2005 by Trumpeter Paul Neebe during the composer's vacation to do ancestral research in the town of Zatten, currently part of Poland.

Roger Petrich writes the following about his Zatten Concerto for Trumpet:

"The 'DNA' of this compostion tracks back to my great-grandfather and the tiny Plattdeutsch village where he was born. Zatten, [then] located in the eastern part of Berlin/Brandenburg is in an area of forest and small farms dating back to the 1600's. My grandfather R. T. Petrich, whose initials I bear, was six years old when he, along with his parents, sister, and older brother left Prussia to start a new life in the USA.

My own childhood memories include many visits to the family homestead in Dakota Territory, where I used to play in the barn which hosted many summer dances. The Dakota sky was vast by day, and nights could become magical with the addition of the Northern Lights. Though not a professional musician, my father kept up his trumpet playing all his life. In a special way it was his "voice" - a sound that deeply imprinted all my growing up years. All of this is mixed together in my Zatten Concerto"

The Zatten Concerto is in three movements, the two outer movements faster and the middle is a Largo. This work is written for Trumpet in C and is appropriate for advanced performers.

The title Zatten (the name of the small village in Germany where his family was located before immigrating to the USA) is spelled out in Morse Code in the very opening eight bars of the work. The Concerto is originally written for Trumpet and String Orchestra, this version using a reduction for Piano.

The performance below (3 short excerpts from the string orchestra version) is performed by solo Trumpeter Paul Neebe.

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