(Leroy Anderson)
This piece for solo trumpet and orchestra was written by Leroy Anderson in 1949 in Woodbury, Connecticut, as a commission from the trumpeter Roger Voisin. The idea for the commission had come after a meeting with Roger Voisin and Arthur Fiedler when Leroy Anderson was employed as an arranger for the Boston Pops Orchestra and he decided that as there had not been a lullaby for trumpet written before, he would compose one.
The trumpet plays a quiet melody with the peaceful lullaby being supplied by the orchestra in the background. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra with Roger Voisin playing the solo trumpet premiered it in May 1950. That same group of people recorded it first in June 1950 and then three months later Leroy Anderson would also record it.
Artists including Al Hirt, Susan Slaughter and Rafael Mendez have made subsequent recordings.
Leroy Anderson and his Symphony Orchestra recordings
MCA MCAD-9815-B (CD: The Leroy Anderson Collection)
Cologne Radio Orchestra recordings
Laser Light 15 248 (CD: Symphonic Pops/Blue Tango)
Conductor – Pinchas Steinberg
Eastman-Rochester Pops Orchestra recordings
Mercury 434 376-2 (CD: Fennell Conducts the Music Of Leroy Anderson and Eric Coates)
Conductor – Frederick Fennell
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recordings
RCA 9026 68048-2 (CD: The Typewriter)
Conductor – Leonard Slatkin
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