Brass Chamber Music Presentation - Arrangements

 Brass Chamber Transcriptions

    The combined forces of the Canadian Brass, Boston Symphony brass, and New York Philharmonic brass come together on this recording to play an arrangement of Beethovens 5th symphony. This piece would have never originally been conceived for brass, but this arrangement lets us see what it would be like in a brass only setting. 


    Polovtsian Dances is a piece written by Russian Big 5 composer Alexander Borodin. It is masterfully arranged here, and played by the brass players of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This piece takes advantage of the more subtle and lyrical capabilities of the brass family. 


    Moving into our first brass quintet arrangement, we have The Canadian Brass playing Bach's very famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor. The piece was arranged by Fred Mills, long time trumpeter of the Canadian Brass. This piece requires good ensemble communication and musical cohesiveness to pull off, and is well demonstrated by The Canadian Brass in the following clip. 


    Up next we have the NTC 2011 winning trumpet ensemble from Northwestern University playing the overture to Poet and Peasant by Franz Von Suppe. The piece was arranged by a member of the group, Matt Barker, who is now 4th/Utility Trumpet in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. This piece is able to show off both the lyrical and commanding sides of the trumpet, in the context of an ensemble made up of only trumpets. 


    Finally, we have a beautiful performance by the German Brass of a section of Bach's Easter Oratorio arranged for brass ensemble. The instrumentation in this one is interesting, as some more uncommon instruments such as the valved trombone and the corno da caccia are used. This ensemble achieves a very unique sound through the use of varying brass instruments of different timbres. 











Comments

  1. Matthew DulasMarch 8, 2025 at 10:05 AM

    So I wanted to check out the Northwestern University trumpet ensemble's performance since we didn't have time for it in class. I'll be going to NTC for the first time as a bass trumpet player, so it was nice to watch another ensemble perform in that setting. By comparison, they don't include flugelhorn or bass trumpet in the lower parts like we do. Yet, I was very impressed by the range of the ensemble, especially on the chord around 0:49. Great presentation!

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  2. Ryan BanksApril 16, 2025 at 10:02 AM

    Thanks for your presentation Jake. I really enjoyed the pieces you shared. I love Beethoven's Fifth symphony, and this arrangement is all the good packed up in a cute little present. I love hearing it and hearing the trumpets take all the woodwind lines. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I will definitely listen to this again!

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