|
Sound
the Bells! American
Premières for Brass: music
by John Williams, Michael Tilson
Thomas, Morten Lauridsen, Bruce
Broughton, Kevin Puts and Scott
Hiltzik
The Bay Brass (Harmonia
Mundi)
featured in The
Arts
Desk
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 26 March
2011
Listening
to this glorious CD of American
brass music after the
Ives/Copland disc reviewed above
got me thinking about what gives
so many of these works their
unmistakable flavour -- something
to do with the wide intervals,
the syncopated rhythms, the
melodies which so often curve
upwards rather than down. The
oldest work on this disc dates
from 1980, the most recent from
2009. The language is unashamedly
tonal and defiantly,
unapologetically positive. Brass
ensemble music can easily become
dull; there's little chance of
that here when each work is so
imaginatively and idiomatically
scored. Michael Tilson Thomas's
Street Song seems at times to
channel the spirit of the
composer's mentor Leonard
Bernstein, and Tilson Thomas
knows exactly what a good brass
group can do -- check out those
wonderful slow trombone slides in
the second movement.
The
three John Williams works are
high-octane easy listening,
technically brilliant showpieces.
Parts of Bruce Broughton's
Fanfares, Marches, Hymns and
Finale recall B-movie soundtracks
and Shostakovich-style manic
energy. Kevin Puts's Elegy offers
much-needed repose before the
percussive handclaps of Scott
Hiltzik's Spirals. The playing by
San Franscisco-based Bay Brass is
phenomenal and spiritual uplift
is guaranteed.
|
|