# Good Brass Music?



## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Can anyone recommend to me any good brass music? - trios, quartets, quintets and other small brass bands, _not_ just jokey, marchy, 'light music'.

This type of arrangement hasn't generally been a favourite of the great composers, but I was in a concert hall the other day and a small brass band was playing something rather beautiful that seemed just as subtle and pleasing as an elegant string quartet.. It reminded me that it can be a wonderful form.

:tiphat:


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Mozart's Rondo in E-flat for Horn, K. 371, is pretty good.

Beethoven has a horn sonata in F, Op. 17, that I really enjoy. He also wrote a sextet for two horns and string quartet, Op. 81b, that is wonderful.

Try Brahms's Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano in E-flat, Op. 40.

Are you also interested in concertos featuring brass instruments?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Jeremiah Clarke's Suite in D -


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Nelhýbel's Brass Trio is quite nice:





Poulenc composed a sonata for horn, trumpet, and trombone early in his career.





Hovhaness's Three Fantasies for brass trio (if you are in need of a little Armenian flavor):





Persichetti: Parable II for brass trio 





Though saxophones are technically wind instruments, Florent Schmitt wrote an great saxophone quartet that you might be interested in.





Malcolm Arnold's Fantasy for solo trumpet deserves a mention.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Elliott Carter, Brass Quintet
Galina Ustvolskaya, Composition 1 - Dona Nobis Pacem
Penderecki, capriccio
Berio, sequenza 5
Nono, Post-praeludium per Donau


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Janáček's Sinfonietta. It features a large brass section.

EDIT: Apologies, I should have read your post properly. You're looking for small ensemble brass music. The Sinfonietta is lovely though.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

Holst's first and second military suites are great to start on. Orchestrated for wind band with significant brass sections (glorious euphonium solo in the second suite, first movement)

The Ewald quintets are a need! #1 starts with an equally glorious tuba opening. I got to play the Allegro from #1 with a great quintet, on tuba, and it was AMAZING.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Minor Sixthist said:


> Holst's first and second military suites are great to start on. Orchestrated for wind band with significant brass sections (glorious euphonium solo in the second suite, first movement)
> 
> .


Holst also wrote 'A Moorside Suite' for brass only, with a lovely slow movement.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Tallisman said:


> Can anyone recommend to me any good brass music? - trios, quartets, quintets and other small brass bands, _not_ just jokey, marchy, 'light music'.
> 
> This type of arrangement hasn't generally been a favourite of the great composers, but I was in a concert hall the other day and a small brass band was playing something rather beautiful that seemed just as subtle and pleasing as an elegant string quartet.. It reminded me that it can be a wonderful form.
> 
> :tiphat:


I know it's not what you were really after, but if you haven't heard the brass in Haydn's symphony 51 adagio, two horns, then you're really missing something special.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Gabrieli with the Empire Brass.

Somewhat of a curiousity are Bruckner's equale for trombones.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Minor Sixthist said:


> The Ewald quintets are a need! #1 starts with an equally glorious tuba opening. I got to play the Allegro from #1 with a great quintet, on tuba, and it was AMAZING.


I'm loving this... This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. It's got that relaxed, soft brassy warmth which was what I was looking for precisely.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

The fact that I've received this amount of replies to something relatively particular and unpopular in the repertoire testifies both to TC's generosity and its encyclopaedic knowledge.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I think the greatest brass quintet ever written is by Malcolm Arnold. I really like the recording with the Saint Louis Quintet as found on this album:

In addition, I would check out the Fanfare: La Peri by Dukas.
Fanfare for the Common Man, of course.

Music for Strings, Brass, Percussion by Hindemith, is also awesome!


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Stravinsky's trumpet duet: Fanfare for a New Theatre, is one of the best atonal works I know. It sounds like two wicked roosters fighting, ends triumphantly.


Gubaidulina's Trio for Three Trumpets is also a favorite.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

What's this? No-one mentioned Wilhelm Ramsoe's five brass quartets?






All of them (except number 3) are here.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

If a little off the mark it is still great brass playing from a first class ens Canadian Brass.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

The Gabrieli Brass music with brass sections of Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia from the 60s is a classic...great disc...new one recently released is excellent also...a superb brass disc is Renaissance Brass Music by Eastman Brass 5tet....fantastic....Chicago Symphony Brass Ensemble has terrific release - Gabrieli, Bach (passacaglia in cminor), Walton Crown Imperial is really great disc...


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I quite like brass bands, a lot of towns and villages used to have a band and it is where a lot of players first got started in music I think only a few bands survive to day.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> I quite like brass bands, a lot of towns and villages used to have a band and it is where a lot of players first got started in music I think only a few bands survive to day.


You're right. When I was a child (in a mining village) there were several bands, for the pits and one for the cable-works and they all came out on 'walking day'. I started on the cornet with the Salvation Army brass band.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

In my town the Brass Band disbanded about 45 years ago, the instruments that were the property of the band (some players had their own) were donated to the local High School and remain mainly unused, what a crying shame.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Vincent Persichetti, Music for Brass Quintet


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## Davidsey (Jun 13, 2021)

This is a new composition for Brass quintet:

__
https://soundcloud.com/david-seymour-1961%2Ffathers-day-brass
. Not Jokey/Light; Serious/Heavy.


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## Posauner (Nov 8, 2020)

Eric Ewazen is one of my favorite composers of brass music, his Colchester Fantasy for brass quintet being my favorite.


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## ShaunRoche (Jun 14, 2013)

Hello one and all! - here in the UK Brass Bands are integral to, and are, an absolutely way of life - so much so that a vast number of Brass players in British Orchestras and further afield all started out in BBs...there are some excellent bands in Norway and Belgium and not forgetting the former colonies of Australia and NZ and the ones establishing themselves in North America.

Rather than go on and on, I'd like your opinion on a quick cross section of music I have been involved in playing...go and search them out and report back your findings if you can be bothered - I would very much like your thoughts on the artistic merits ie the writing, the performing, the musicality of the genre that might actually be in some cases the first time you've heard the like.

Here goes, give these a bash please....

Philip Wilby:
Masquerade
Vienna Nights
Paganini Variations

Philip Sparke:
Music of the Spheres
Between the moon and Mexico
Year of the Dragon
Partita

Peter Graham:
On Alderley Edge
Journey to the centre of the Earth
Montage
Harrison's Dream

Kenneth Downie:
St. Magnus (YBS Band live recording is the best, on Youtube) - in fact if you could start with this, it might set the tone....

And my absolute favourite. _Connotations _by Edward Gregson.

Please bear in mind there are some truly awful performances out there so best to choose bands like Cory, Black ****, Brighouse and Rastrick, Grimethorpe, Fairy Engineering, Fodens, YBS, Eikanger and Willebroek to name a few decent ones...

Please let me know your thoughts!

Love and Peace.

Ps - if you still have the will to live after listening to any of the above, at least please look for _English Heritage_ or _Diversions on a Bass Theme_ by George Lloyd - GL was a completely ignored English composer (overshadowed by Britten and a love of Atonality) whom wrote many Symphonies, piano concerti and a few Operas and a few works for BB. I especially adore his 7th Symphony and his two great choral works, A Symphonic Mass and A Litany - look him up, he had a very eventful life and deserves better recognition.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I know it's not what you were really after, but if you haven't heard the brass in Haydn's symphony 51 adagio, two horns, then you're really missing something special.


Highest horn parts i've ever heard...concert Bb (above treble clef)...Schumann Konzerstuck, Strsuss Symphonia Domestica reach concert A...


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> Gabrieli with the Empire Brass.
> 
> Somewhat of a curiousity are Bruckner's equale for trombones.


Beethoven 3 Equale for trombones is standard rep...


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

An all-time brass classic:
Gabrielli Canzona played by members of Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra Cleveland Orchestra...recorded in late 60s for CBS....wonderful sound, some of the greatest players..

Also, if you can find it -
Renaissance Music for Brass 5tet - Eastman Brass 5tet....recorded in late 60s...Scheidt, Holborne etc...great playing, amazing ensemble

Newer - German Brass - works of JS Bach...sound spectacular arrangements of famous Bach pieces..


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> If a little off the mark it is still great brass playing from a first class ens Canadian Brass.


The Canadian Brass recorded a number of fine arrangements e.g. of Brahms's late Chorale Preludes for organ. With brass I find you often find the best music by checking out recordings by the best ensembles -- let them do the work of choosing repertoire! The American Brass Quintet, Philip Jones Ensemble, new all-women brass groups at www.brasschicks.com.


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