Brass Partout

We heard Brass Partout's recording of the Böhme sextet today and I mentioned that although I liked their recording a lot, I didn't know anything about the group. I did find their website , which is only in German, and information about their recordings. If you are interested, I used Google translate to get a rough idea of what the website says. See below. 

Google translation of website pages:

Ensemble:

The continuous collaboration with the conductor and artistic director Hermann Bäumer led brass partout to the top of the German brass ensembles. In 1991, the members got to know each other while playing music together in the Federal Youth Orchestra and today they are engaged in renowned German orchestras. From the outset, brass partout demanded that its program design combine stylistically diverse works from different countries and epochs in thematic contexts. Based on original compositions, the repertoire is supplemented by own arrangements and world premieres of works written for brass partout.

The ensemble was u.a. to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Heidelberg Spring and the Brandenburg Summer Concerts. The concert with brass partout was selected and broadcast for the RBB's annual TV report on the Brandenburg Summer Concerts. Depending on the program, the ensemble performs in different sizes: from a septet line-up, such as Sibelius, to the classic Tentett line-up, to a percussion-extended line-up of 16 or more musicians.

The Swedish label BIS engaged brass partout for its edition of original works for brass ensemble. With "Playgrounds for Angels" (BIS-CD-1054), brass partout presented its debut CD in 2000 with works by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg and Knut Nystedt. This was followed in 2003 by the CD "Nokturno" (BIS-CD-1274) with works by Anatol Liadov, Oskar Böhme, Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Aram Khachaturian and Edison Denisov. In spring 2007, the new CD "Black Castles" (BIS-CD-1354) will be released with works by Edward Elgar, Arthur Butterworth, Derek Bourgeois, John Tavener, John Pickard and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

The continuous collaboration with the conductor and artistic director Hermann Bäumer led brass partout to the top of the German brass ensembles. In 1991, the members got to know each other while playing music together in the Federal Youth Orchestra and today they are engaged in renowned German orchestras. From the outset, brass partout demanded that its program design combine stylistically diverse works from different countries and epochs in thematic contexts. Based on original compositions, the repertoire is supplemented by own arrangements and world premieres of works written for brass partout.

The ensemble was u.a. to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Heidelberg Spring and the Brandenburg Summer Concerts. The concert with brass partout was selected and broadcast for the RBB's annual TV report on the Brandenburg Summer Concerts.
Depending on the program, the ensemble performs in different sizes: from a septet line-up, such as Sibelius, to the classic Tentett line-up, to a percussion-extended line-up of 16 or more musicians.

The Swedish label BIS engaged brass partout for its edition of original works for brass ensemble. With "Playgrounds for Angels" (BIS-CD-1054), brass partout presented its debut CD in 2000 with works by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg and Knut Nystedt. This was followed in 2003 by the CD "Nokturno" (BIS-CD-1274) with works by Anatol Liadov, Oskar Böhme, Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Aram Khachaturian and Edison Denisov. In spring 2007, the new CD "Black Castles" (BIS-CD-1354) will be released with works by Edward Elgar, Arthur Butterworth, Derek Bourgeois, John Tavener, John Pickard and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

Google Translation of Herman Baumer:

From the 2011/12 season, Hermann Bäumer has been chief conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Mainz and general music director of the State Theater. Previously, he held the position of music director of the City of Osnabrück with enormous success 7 years. The excellent reputation that Hermann Bäumer has introduced its not only solid, but also extremely creative work, is reflected not only in the great public response and in praise of the specialized press, but also in a variety of guest conductor at home and abroad. Along with symphony Osnabrück received Hermann Bäumer 2009 ECHO Klassik in the category of symphonic recording of the 20th century for the first part of the complete recording of the symphonies by Josef Bohuslav Foerster. In August 2007, Hermann Bäumer conducted the same orchestra concerts to Tehran - thus appeared for the first time since 1979 a Western orchestra in Iran.

Engagements Hermann Bäumer 2011 among others already on Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra for, the Robert Schumann Philharmonie Chemnitz or the Hofer Symphoniker. The National Youth Orchestra conducted Hermann Bäumer with Bruckner's Eighth Symphony on an extended tour of major German concert halls. The 2011/12 season at the Mainz State Theater Hermann Bäumer opened in September with the premiere of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

Born in Bielefeld Hermann Bäumer began six years ago, to play the piano. Later he also received violoncello and trombone lessons and then studied conducting in Detmold and Leipzig. From 1992 to 2003 he was a trombonist with the Berlin Philharmonic, with its brass ensemble he had a long-standing cooperation. Furthermore, Hermann Bäumer was among others at the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Oslo and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra at the desk and was at festivals such as the Rheingau Music Festival and the Heidelberg Spring guest. A special highlight was a Berlin performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with Christine Schäfer.

In addition, Hermann Bäumer is the nation's most prized for its youth work, which manifests itself in working with numerous youth orchestras such as the National Youth Orchestra, the country's youth orchestras North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate. With the latter, he went in October 2007 on tour in France, Poland and Germany.

Has a special affinity Hermann Bäumer to exceptional musical and dramatic repertoire. So had in Osnabrück in 2005/06 Alex Nowitz 'Bestmannoper with great attention from the press and public premiered; and no less great attention Hans-Werner Henze Wundertheater and 2007/08 Gounod's La nun Sanglante was in the 2004/05 season on the board.

With the NDR Radio Philharmonic Hermann Bäumer took 2006 August Enna's Hot love for CPO, and with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra Jón Leif Edda I for the BIS label. Additional recordings includes the first recording of the said Wundertheater by Henze with the Osnabrück Symphony and Sinfonien Nos. 1 and 2 of Karl Holler with the Bamberg Symphony. Another project is the complete recording of the symphonies by Josef Bohuslav Foerster with the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra, the first part was awarded an ECHO Klassik in 2009. The second part was published in January 2009 (MDG). In December 2009, d'Albert Seejungfräulein and Symphony, Op. 4 and appeared in summer 2010, Gounod's La nun Sanglante who was awarded the Prize of the German Record Critics 3/2010 (CPO).

Hermann Bäumer will represent classic Agency PR2.
www.pr2classic.de

Google tranlation of Musiker (Musicians):
 

Markus Finkler - principal trumpeter of the Magdeburg Philharmonic Yosemeh Adjei trumpet player in the Cologne Radio Orchestra

Raphael Mentzen trumpet player in the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin

Martin Hommel - trumpeter in the Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg

Mario Schlumpberger - trumpeter in the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg

Jochen Ubbelohde - solo horn in the Saxon Staatskapelle Dresden

Jörg Brückner - solo horn of the Dresdner Philharmonie

Julius Rönnebeck - horn player in the Saxon Staatskapelle Dresden

Andreas Klein - solo soprano in the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin

Tobias Unger - solo soprano is on the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart of the SWR

Axel Maucher - freelance trombonist in Kempten

Nils M. Schinker - freelance trombonist and architect in Dresden

Ulrich Oberschelp - bass trombonist in the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra

Thomas Keller - Tubist in the Staatskapelle Berlin

Alexander von Puttkamer - tubist in the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Jan Schlichte - drummer of the Berliner Philharmoniker

Wieland Welzel - solo timpanist of the Berliner PhilharmonikerFrankfurter Rundschau

Oskar Böhme Brass Sextet

Oskar Böhme (1870-1938)

On Monday we will listen to Oskar Böhme's Trompetensextett (Trumpet Sextet) in E-flat minor, op. 30. Published in 1907, the work was originally orchestrated for 1 cornet, 2 trumpets, "basstrompet in E-flat (Althorn)", "Trombone (Tenorhorn)", "Tuba hoch B. (Bariton)". Modern editions indicate an orchestration for 3 trumpets (with an alternate horn part substitute for 3rd trumpet), trombone or baritone (alternate for horn), trombone or baritone, and tuba. Most current recordings use this version. Below are some biographical excerpts about Böhme.

From Grove Online (article by Edward H. Tarr)

(b Potschappel, nr Dresden, Feb 24, 1870; d ?Chkalov, Ural region, ?1938). German cornettist and composer. He is thought to have trained with his father, Heinrich Wilhelm Böhme (b 1843), a music teacher, and from 1885 he toured as a soloist. From 1894 to 1896 he played in the orchestra at the Royal Hungarian Opera House, Budapest. Between 1896 and 1897 he studied composition with Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatory. He then moved to St Petersburg, playing in the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra from 1897 to 1921, teaching in a musical college on Vasilyevskiy Island from 1921 to 1930, and playing in the Leningrad Drama Theatre orchestra from 1930 to 1934. Like many people of German origin, he was banished by Stalin to Chkalov (now Orenburg) and taught at a music school there from 1936 to 1938. The year of his death is uncertain; one eyewitness claims to have seen him at hard labour on the Turkmenian Channel in 1941. He composed 46 known works with opus numbers, including a lavishly Romantic concerto in E minor op.18 for trumpet in A (1899), which has remained in the repertory. His brother Max William (1861–?1928) played in the Royal Hungarian Opera House orchestra from 1889 to 1908 and was the first professor for trumpet at the National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music from 1897 to 1908. He was also a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra between 1891 and 1901; in 1908 he returned to his birthplace of Potschappel to open a music school.

From Brass Music Online:

Oskar Böhme
By Mikolaj Sluzewski

Oskar Böhme was one of the three German trumpeters – alongside Willy Brandt and Wilhelm Wurm – who at the turn of the 19th and 20th century happened to have a significant influence on Russian trumpet training, thus defining the role of the instrument in the European classical music for decades to follow.

While both the popularity of his works and Böhme himself suffered greatly from Stalinist repressions in 1930s, his compositions, written in the Romantic idiom, are being increasingly rediscovered and performed by orchestras, bands and solo artists all over the world.

Formative years and early career
Oskar Böhme was born on February 24, 1870, in Potschappel, a small town near Dresden, Germany, to a musical family of Wilhelm and Juliane Henriette Böhme. His father was a local musician, playing trumpet in a miners’ band and working as a music teacher in Dresden. Oskar as well as two out of his three brothers, Max William (called Willi) and Georg, learned to play trumpet from their father, and each of them went on to pursue a successful career in music, while the remaining third brother Benno became a wood sculptor.

From around the age of fifteen, Böhme began touring as a solo artist and probably played in smaller orchestras around Germany, including spa orchestras during summer seasons. Most of his activities in this period remain undocumented, however there are traces of his performances in the form of concert reviews from local newspapers reaching as far as Helsinki in September 1889. Oskar was also reported to have played together with his older brother Willi in Bayreuth in August of 1892.

Some sources suggest that Oskar studied trumpet and composition in the Leipzig Conservatory of Music until graduating in 1888, but it is probably not true. A more likely scenario says that during his traveling period Böhme took lessons from professor Gurlitt in Hamburg and Horovitz in Berlin, and later from professor Hertzfeld in Budapest.

From Budapest to Leipzig
It is said that in 1894 Böhme relocated to Budapest, where he joined his older brother Willi in the Royal Hungarian Opera House orchestra. Willi, who had settled in Budapest in 1889, went on to become the first trumpet professor at the National Hungarian Royal Music Academy (currently known as Franz Liszt Music Academy) in 1897, while Oskar left the city in 1896 to enter the Leipzig Conservatory – the same school another famous trumpeter and Böhme’s equal Eduard Seifert graduated in 1894.

Böhme, who by the time had already been an established trumpet player himself, attended the Conservatory for a year from 2 November 1896 to 1 December 1897 to study music theory, composition and piano – he was assessed “absolute beginner” as a pianist by one of his teachers, who nevertheless noted that Oskar shown great progress, developing proper technique and working command of the instrument to complement his overall impressive music skills.

From Böhme’s Leipzig period come a couple of his first original compositions. It is documented that two lieder and a scherzo for two trumpets and piano written by Böhme were performed during student recitals, on 7 May and 26 November 1897, respectively. Another early work, entitled “Prealudium, Fuge und Choral” for two trumpets, horn, and trombone was performed by Leipzig Conservatory students in 1898, after Böhme had already left the school.

Imperial Russia to Soviet Union
At the time of prosperity of German classical music schooling, the level of musical training in Russia was dramatically falling. It was then decided to attract prominent foreign musicians by offering them academic careers and performing opportunities that Western-European countries were becoming short of. Conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg were created in the 1860s by the initiative of Anton Rubenstein, founder of the Russian Music Society.

Oskar Böhme was one of the three notable German trumpet players (the other two being Wilhelm Wurm and Willy Brandt) who decided to take their professional career East in exchange for Russian citizenship – which was required in order to legally work there. Böhme moved to St. Petersburg, where he played cornet in the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra from 1897 (although some sources confirm only 1902) until 1921. During that period, he used his statutory 4-month summer breaks to go on concert tours in Germany and other European countries.

Between 1921-1930 Böhme taught at the Leningrad Military College in St. Petersburg, on Vasilyevsky Island where he lived. Subsequently, he returned to playing with the orchestra, joining the Great Drama Theater (officially known as Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theater, currently named Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater) where he stayed until 1934 – the year marking the beginning of the “Great Terror”.

Glorious legacy
During his life, and despite his later exile, Oskar Böhme was an esteemed musician, well known from his performance in numerous orchestras, and an accomplished composer with great contribution to Russian and European classical music, and brass music in particular. He left a total of 46 works, including a book of 24 etudes that has been an invaluable study material for several generations of trumpet players, and still is.

The most famous and most frequently performed pieces by Böhme are the Trompetensextett in E-flat minor, op. 30 (published in 1907 – here arranged by Brian Bindner for Brass Ensemble) and his Trumpet Concerto, op. 18 – first published in 1899 as a score for trumpet and piano, with orchestral version added in the following years. Originally written in the key of E minor with the solo for the A trumpet, it has been since transposed (by Franz Herbst in 1941) to F minor to be played on the B-flat trumpet.
The Trumpet Concerto, being the first composition of such scale for trumpet and orchestra, was considered groundbreaking at the time, exhibiting the capabilities of trumpet and bringing the perception of this instrument to a new height. Today, it remains one of the favorite trumpet pieces to perform both on admission and graduation exams, and a culminating example of Böhme’s masterful take on merging German tradition with Russian soul.

Last year, Edward Tarr released a letter about his discovery of Böhm's likely demise. Click here to view that post. 

Alabiev and Poulenc

Today in class we heard music by Alexander Alyabyev (also spelled Alabiev or Alabieff, and Aljabjew) and Francis Poulenc.

Alabiev was a Russian composer who lived  from 1787 to 1851. His brass quintet, written in 1847 certainly predates the Ewald Quintets and some of the Bellon brass quintets, written 1848-1850), so it is definitely one of the earliest works for brass quintet. 

Alexander Alabiev (1787-1851)

Wikipedia Bio:

Alexander Aleksandrovich Alyabyev (15 August1787 – 6 March 1851), also rendered as Alabiev or Alabieff, was a Russian composer known as one of the fathers of the Russian art song. He wrote seven operas, twenty musical comedies, a symphony, three string quartets, more than 200 songs, and many other pieces.

Born to a wealthy family in Tobolsk in Siberia, Alyabyev learned music in his early years. He joined the Russian Army in 1812, during the Napoleonic War, and fought as an officer until 1823. He participated in the entry of the Russian forces into Dresden and Paris, and he won two awards. After the mysterious death of a man he spent all night gambling with in February 1825, he was arrested on a charge of murder. While the evidence was not conclusive, Tsar Nicholas I expressly ordered him into exile to his native town of Tobolsk. Freed in 1831, he spent some years in the Caucasus before returning to Moscow, where he died in 1851.

Bio from All Music by Zoran Minderovic:

Born in 1787, Alexander Alyabyev was a versatile and accomplished Russian composer working in the Classical, tradition, his oeuvre including chamber music, symphonic works, and operas. In 1815, he composed his String quartet in E flat major, a work which demonstrated his ability to write for string ensemble. Alyabyev started composing for the stage in the 1820s; his operas include The Water Nymph (Based on Pushkin. as well as works inspired by the plays of Shakespeare -- The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Tempest, and The Enchanted Night (based on Midsummer Night' Dream. In 1834, he published a book of Ukrainian folk melodies. Alyabyev died in 1851.

The quintet is written in one movement, with two sections. The first, Adagio, has a dark and somber mood, which is quickly broken by the Allegro Vivace, which features fanfare-like themes dance-inspired marches reminiscent of Verdi's and Boehme's sextet. The recording we heard was by the Montanus Quintet from their recording "Russian Music for Brass Quintet". Click here to listen to the recording on YouTube, or click here to order it from Amazon digital music. It was also noted in class that the tuba player plays most of the part an octave down from the Randal Block edition available from Pepper. I believe the original called for the higher octave. To order the quintet (parts, no score) from Pepper click here.

Francis Poulenc's Brass Trio. This piece has a particular charm, and is very specific about articulation, including apparently contradictory indications regarding short or long eighth notes. The piece is written for horn, trumpet and trombone and the recording we heard was from a Naxox album of chamber music by Poulenc with Hervé Jolain on horn, Guy Touvron on trumpet, and Jaques Mauger on trombone.

Here are a few quotes from several sources about this piece and its composer:

From ClassicalNet:

"Poulenc behaved like a sophisticated eccentric (he once chatted up a stupefied Cannes bartender about an ingenious harmonic progression he managed to pull off that morning), and the eccentricity not surprisingly showed up in his music. Many have called attention to his split artistic personality, "part monk, part guttersnipe," but really he has many more sides. Like most French composers of his generation, he fell under the influences of Stravinsky and Satie. Yet he doesn't imitate either. You can identify a Poulenc composition immediately with its bright colors, strong, clear rhythms, and gorgeous and novel diatonic harmonies. He is warmer and less intellectual than Stravinsky, more passionate and musically more refined than Satie."

"Francis Poulenc: Shocking the bourgeoisie" from The Timid Soul's Guide to Classical Music by James Reel:

"All right, it's an exaggeration to say that Francis Poulenc was the Sid Vicious of 1920s French art music. But Poulenc and his circle hit the classical music scene with almost the same biting, nihilistic force with which the punk movement slammed into popular music in the 1970s and early '80s.

Both movements were big on irony and mockery, including self-mockery. The goal was to shock the bourgeoisie, to burn off the sugar coating that music had been collecting in the previous decades. And both movements were absorbed into the mainstream in barely a decade. Francis Poulenc joined a circle of young composers gathered around the eccentric Erik Satie, the famous scribbler of whimsically titled pieces ("Gymnopédies,'' "Vexations'' and the like) with nonsensical comments running through the scores.

Satie's followers opposed the vagueness of Impressionism, the style typified by Claude Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.'' They advocated simplicity and clarity. They also thought emotions should be more restrained than they had been in late 19th century Romantic music, although the Satie set eagerly made exceptions to the rule of restraint for the purposes of satire.

In 1920, a critic dubbed the half-dozen leading members of this circle - Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, Germaine, Tailleferre and Louis Durey - "Les Six.''
As a composer, Poulenc was largely self-taught, and one method of self-education is imitation. Many of Poulenc's early works, including a sonata for two clarinets and a brass trio, mimic the ironic Neoclassicism of Igor Stravinsky."