Brass Bonanza - Alan Hovhaness, Six Dances - Malcolm Arnold, Quintet - Michel Leclerc, "Par Monts et Par Vaux" Liadov-Glazunov, Fanfares for the Jubilee of Rimsky-Korsakov - Giavanni Gabrieli, Canzona & works by Brade, Dutton, Speer, Horovitz & Kessel - Crystal Records 1986

Here's a disc for brass quintet that I bought war back when for the "Six Dances" of Hovhaness. The Quintet of Malcolm Arnold was a nice bonus, not to mention the brief (1:43) Liadov/Glazunov work which is an arrangement for brass quintet. Michel Leclerc's "Par Monts et Par Vaux"  is an interesting listen as well. As for the rest, it's standard in comparison, although a couple works are rather obscure and brass enthusiasts likely will enjoy everything.

Alan Hovhaness's "Six Dances" for Brass Quintet has straight forward melodies and harmony. It is brief but delightful (each contrasting movement is a study of rhythmic division however, with meters of 13/8, 5/8, 3/4, & 3/8, 7/8, 5/8 & 4/8, and 2/2). I for one can easily imagine the dances with a small string ensemble accompaniment, especially with AH's signature usage of pizzicato intermittently adding to the already courtly and mystical quality. Then again we enjoy enough works with such forces in his catalog I suppose!

Anatol Liadov and Alexander Glazunov originally wrote their "Fanfares for the Jubilee of Rimsky-Korsakov" for large brass ensemble and percussion. The arrangement here for Quintet was made by Richard Barth, tuba player with the Metropoliltan Brass Quintet. It's a nice little morsel! 

Giovanni Gabrieli's "Canzona per sonare" is part of a collection of six canzonas published in Venice in 1608. I wish all six had been recorded here, there certainly is room on the disc for the whole collection! 

Malcolm Arnold's Quintet for Brass, composed in 1961, is one of the mainstays of the brass quintet literature and it's an entirely charming work from start to end (it's Malcolm Arnold, so no surprise there!) that I'm sure most of you will know quite well. 

Michel Leclerc, born in Belgium in 1914, studied at the Royal Conservatory of Liege and the Paris Nat'l Conservatory of Music. He played violin in the Liege RSO and was a member of several string quartets. He beam Professor of Chamber Music at the Liege Conservatory in 1946. The composer made the following translations and descriptions of the five movements of "Par Monts et Par Vaux"(Over Mountains and Valleys): 1) The Willow Hill, 2) The Undergrowth, 3) Play of the Lienne, a small river, 4) Chapel in the Pines, 5) Dance of the Follerie, a small tributary of the Lienne river. 

Brent Dutton was born in 1950 and began his musical studies at the age of nine in his native Canada. He writes the following of the "Carnival of Venice": "The composition is a fond and loving tribute to the grand brass tradition of the 19th century. The Variations are based on J.B. Arban's classic setting of the traditional theme." ".......I will admit to adding touches of Wagner and Bruckner as well". 

Joseph Horovitz, born in 1926 is an English composer who has written music in every genre. "Music Hall Suite" was composed in 1964 and is considered to be among the finest in popular brass chamber music. The four movements presented characterize various vaudeville and burlesque entertainment forms. I am personally not that 'entertained' by the results but that's just me..

Who is cooler, hipper and more playful than a brass quintet?? No one! -This is not from this disc.

 

Enjoy everyone

Brass_Bonanza_Hovhaness_Arnold_Etc-Tzadik.zip

http://www19.zippyshare.com/v/lVqIuqBj/file.html

Chicago Trombone Consort - Works by: Vaclav Nelhybel - Giovanni Gabrieli - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi - Richard Strauss - Eugène Bozza - Rob Deemer - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - Enrique Crespo - Josef Rhineberger - J.S. Bach

Here's a quirky disc for all fans of trombone music. The composers represented here run the gamut from the Renaissance to the contemporary, and I must say it's an interesting ride.

The Chicago Trombone Consort is made up of principals, nine on this disc, based in and around Chicago. The consort was founded in 2008, this being its debut recording. It certainly lives up to its intention of offering a varied program. Within the first 10 minutes or so one lurches from a pleasant opening fanfare (the Czech composer Vaclav Nelhybel, rather unknown, was quite prolific in almost every genre, and has a style that is somewhat like Martinu, especially in his orchestral writing) that starts with a delightful low raspberry, via an arrangement of ceremonial Gabrieli, then a rather suave contemporary piece by the English composer Jeremy Dibb, followed by the Pergolesi trio sonata, whose first and third movements are instantly recognizable from Stravinsky’s "Pulcinella".

And then (with far too short a pause), comes the disconcerting sound of the opening of Strauss’'s Alpine Symphony. This is a fascinating relaying of the big work for trombone quartet, or rather a judiciously selected 11 minutes of it, presenting mainly the slow sonorous passages. Wisely, the arranger, Ben Mansted, has eschewed most of the vigorous tramping up the mountain, which would have surely been implausible, to say the least, on four trombones, resulting in a rather skewed impression of the original. The trombone solo at the beginning of “'Entering the Forest”' is the only miscalculation in the recital, having something of the associations of lachrymose music hall (vaudeville?) soloists. Otherwise the arrangement is curiously successful on its own terms.

The Rob Deemer’ piece, "Shock and Awe", is a commission from the Chicago Trombone Quartet, a subset of the present band. It is a deliberately facetious and ironic work in three short movements, of which the middle one, 'Calls/Responses', is more than half the whole work and juxtaposes widely disparate music. The opening of the first movement reminds me not only of Hovhaness's signature trombone glissandi and.....also of Harpo Marx when he would squeeze any number of horns that he kept stashed within his trench coat. Truly the laughter of the trombone is right out of the Marx Brother's "Duck Soup". It's wacky and good fun that even nods at the lighter music of Shostakovich in its jauntiness. Whether the jolliness of the final movement, 'Brave New World', is intended to be straight or ironic, is hard to say.

Next is Palestrina—'s stately "Ecce veniet dies ills", something of a chaser after the Deemer work. In Enrique Crespo’'s "Bruckner Etude" one immediately thinks of Bruckner’'s "Aequali" and the "E-Minor Mass", and it is as if Bruckner’s idiom has been thickened by 20th-century Romanticism. Its sound world harks back to track 9, the music of 'Calls/Responses'. Eugène Bozza’'s "Andantino" is another stylistic hybrid. Bozza, who was French (d.1991), wrote plenty of brass music, and this piece, all of 2:18, starts with a theme dangerously close to Ravel’s "Pavane pour une infante defunte". (on trombone, of course). Mark Fisher’'s arrangement of Rhineberger’'s "Abendlied" adds a bit more glorious sonority before the recording finishes with the Bach Passacaglia.

Track listing:

1)Vaclav Nelhybel (1919-1996) - "Tower Music" (2:28)
2)Giovanni Gabrieli - "Canzon Septimi Toni No. 2" ( H. Lloyd Leno, arr.; Peter Ellefson, arr.)  (2:51)
3)Jeremy Dibb (b. 1960)  - "Provence" (4:15)

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Ralph Sauer, arr.) - "Trio Sonata No. 4" (5:52)
4)I. Allegro (2:23)
5)II. Adagio (2:14) 
6)III. Presto e staccato  (1:13)

7)Richard Strauss (Mansted. B., arr.) - "Alpine Fantasy" (10:47)

Rob Deemer (b. 1970) - "Shock and Awe for Trombone Quartet" (9:09)
8)Spin Cycles (1:59)
9)Calls/Responses (4:44)
10)Brave New Worlds (2:25)

11)Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - "Ecce veniet dies illa" (3:06)
12)Enrique Crespo (b. 1941) - "Bruckner Etude fur das tiele Blech" (5:54)
13)Eugène Bozza (1905-1991) - "Andantino for Trombone Trio" (2:23)
14)Josef Rhineberger (1839-1901) (Mark Fisher, arr.) - "Abendlied Op. 69, No. 3" (2:44)
15)Johann Sebastian Bach; Donald Hunsberger - "Passacaglia in C Minor" (5:30)

Enjoy

Chicago_Trombone_Consort-Tzadik.zip

http://www12.zippyshare.com/v/K7SrV0iT/file.html