BRASS Quintets!!

Started by snyprrr, March 12, 2009, 11:42:52 PM

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snyprrr

My first classical recital was hearing my teacher play the Carter Quintet w/ the Annapolis BQ. Needless to say i ridiculed him and all modern music as a horror movie...

Now...the Carter Quintet IS one of his toughest nuts; I had the Wallace Collection...I'll come back to it.

Movements by Ralph Shapey come to mind, and Druckman's Other Voices, both on a New World cd.  Persichetti...a lot of U.S. compilations.

Holmboe and Simpson.

And I have PJBE's "The 20th Century Album", a 2-cd set on Decca with ALL kinds of stuff, the most modern being Previn and Arnold. They also have a "GreatestHits" with Ewald, et al.

...and wasn't there some old-timey russian composer who wrote a lot of brass qnts.?


Archaic Torso of Apollo

This is a terrific disc of Scandinavian brass 5tets, including the two by Holmboe:



I have the first Arnold 5tet played by Philip Jones & co. Still haven't heard the Carter - not an easy piece to get hold of.
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

david johnson


snyprrr

I've been on a BrassQuintet kick lately.

I got two (+1) albums by the AmericanBrassQuintet (ABQ), the NewWorld issue with Bolcom, Shapey, Wright, & Druckman, and the Summit release, "Premier!", with Schuller, Sampson, Welcher, & Jan Bach. I have an old CRI/Irwin Bazelon cd, with them playing a BQ, coming.

The NewWorld disc is uniformly excellent. It is certainly thee ModernBrassQuintet cd to have, perhaps along with their (or John Wallace's) Carter. I got the Summit disc for the Schuller No.2, hoping that he would be the one (I have a hard time enjoying the Carter (see OP)), an lo!, he delivers a scintillating 3mvmt work that I just find to be the be all of BrassQuintets. It's just that Schuller is sooo inside the medium that he can't help but write awesomely here (uh,...his SQs, not so much). It's intelligent and extremely stylish (but, uniquely so, no real precedent here (generally speaking)), and, the ending canon, as a unison line breaks up into Xenakian tempo-echos, is absolutely memorable. If you want another classic to enjoy rather than the ultra thorny Carter, then Schuller BrassQuintet No.2 is TheOne!!

The other pieces I wil have to hear again (the Schuller fairly obliterated their memory), but, the Welcher BQ, from 1982, did stand out as the most Avant (Lutoslawski?), in a halting, experimental style. I look forward to hearing the Bazelon (1963).



I did Search 'brass quintets' on Amazon, and came up with @600 listing, and checked them all! Amazingly, one you get past the Crystal Records series, and the myriad of typical CanadianBrass, and the such like, there really aren't all that many real choices for the Modern Repertiore. Eric Ewazen and Jan Bach (and Plog) are names that pop up, and there's plenty of Bernstein styled, jazzy recitals of mostly arrangements (I'm guessing), and so forth. Only Mayer and Bazelon popped up as old CRI stalwarts. Then, there's the Holmboe and Arnold and Dahl and Hindemith and Persichetti, a few more, and then,...poof!

Anyhow, I've got plenty to keep me busy if I continue to feel brassy. It's great MorningMusic!! :D

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