In different times and cultures a particular romance has attached to the person of the trumpeter. He is portrayed as heroic and responsible and his clarion voice true and decisive. In Numbers, Moses assigned the trumpeter specific message-bearing tasks, which he played wrong at Israel’s peril. Thomas Hardy characterised him as the modestly romantic Trumpet Major. In the baroque era, he was the Sargeant Trumpeter, paid more than string players and given dazzling, high daredevil solos among the upper harmonics on valveless instruments. Handel risked his cold lip in Messiah, making him wait until part three to play “The Trumpet Shall Sound”, his golden resonance representing Heaven. “Or war,” says the 52-year-old Swedish trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger, who has pre