Jan Bach "Laudes" and André Previn "Four Outings for Brass"

Center City Brass Quintet

For today's class, we listened to Laudes (1972) by Jan Bach and Four Outings for Brass (1974) by André Previn. There are several similarities between these two landmark works; each is a four-movement work for brass quintet, written in the early 1970's by American composers although Previn was born in Germany and emigrated to the US when he was nine, and both recordings we listened to were made by the Center City Brass Quintet. 

We just lost composer Jan Bach on October 30th, 2020. Laudes is one of the most important works for brass quintet of the 20th century. His writing is imaginative, challenging, and utilizes the full range and color of all of the instruments. The four movements of Laudes are:

I. Reveille
II. Scherzo
III. Cantilena
IV. Volta

Program Notes by Jan Bach:

"Laudes (loud-ays), as its name may imply, is a Twentieth-Century tribute to the great brass tower music of the Italian Renaissance. Its title has several different associations: I(louds) was the sunrise service of the Roman Catholic Church. Laude (loud-ee) were Italian hymns of praise and devotion which flourished from the 13th through the 19th centuries. And the title is also a musical pun: somewhere in each movement is a loud concert A! The work was written in late 1971 at the request of the Chicago Brass Quintet, which premiered the piece at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art on January 21, 1972.

The work is cast in four contrasting movements. Reveille moves from dark to bright colors, alternating sections of relative inactivity with sections of extreme brilliance and energy. Its title was chosen after the fact, because of the music's suggestion of a sunrise. Scherzo is cast in three-part form, its quick outer sections consisting principally of a single melodic line produced by rapid entrances and exits of the five instruments playing their "open" (valveless) tones con sordino, the middle section consisting of chromatic scale segments in both principal and supporting material. Cantilena gives each instrument an opportunity to dominate one of several solo sections which alternate with weightier sections of all five instruments, each section cadencing in the same d minor/c minor polychord. Volta, a lewd dance (the couples actually embraced each other!) of Provencal origin, is in this instance a quick movement of violent dynamic and textural contrasts. After an exhausted breakdown of the instrumental forces near the end of this movement, the suite concludes with a coda based on a slow section of the first movement; out of this coda emerges a gradually rising and quickening line which brings the work to a brilliant close.

In 1974 this work received international attention when it was chosen as the best new brass quintet submitted to the First International Brass Institute in Montreux, Switzerland. Since that time, Laudes has been performed countless times throughout the world, largely through the efforts of the New York Brass Quintet, which performed it on two European and several American tours, recorded it on Crystal records, and published it through their Mentor Music house. Laudes opened the Kennedy Library in Boston, and was danced to by the Hubbard Street Dancers on the streets of New York. It is one of a very few works by living contemporary composers existing simultaneously in four different recordings, three of which on CD and recorded since 1990. In 1983 a poll of International Trumpet Guild members selected it (along with works by Dahl, Schuller, and Etler) as one of the four most significant brass quintets ever written."

Four Outings for Brass has a more accessible and popular-influenced sound to it, which is not surprising as Previn composed for films and performed and recorded jazz, but it is also very challenging to perform. The four movements are:

I. Moderato, with energy
II. Blues tempo
III. Slowly
IV. Vivace

 Here are the program notes  from the Stockholm Chamber Brass recording liner notes:

"More than half a century after Stravinsky wrote Ragtime, the pianist, conductor and composer André Previn wrote Four Outings for Brass. The piece was written for the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and was first performed at the 1974 South Bank Summer Festival in London. Each movement represents a soloist. The first movement is light-hearted in character, with the tuba as soloist. The second movement is in blues style with two trumpets playing the principal part. The third movement, with hints of Kurt Weill in the Mahogany-like trombone solo, reminds us of Previn's early Berlin background. The fast and scherzo-like final movement presents a smooth horn melody in a rough and rhythmical pattern. Four Outings is dedicated to 'Fletcher'."

 

Malcolm Arnold - Symphony for Brass and Brass Quintet No. 1

Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)

 

Today we will be listening to two landmark works by Sir Malcolm Arnold; his Symphony for Brass, Op 123 (1978) and his Brass Quintet No 1, Op 73 (1961).

Born in Northampton in 1921, Malcolm Arnold is one of the towering figures of the 20th century, with a remarkable catalogue of major concert works to his credit, including nine symphonies, seven ballets, two operas, one musical, over twenty concertos, two string quartets, and music for brass-band and wind-band. He also wrote132 film scores, among these are some of the finest works ever composed for the medium including Bridge on the River Kwai (for which, in 1958, he was one of the first British composers ever to win an Oscar), Inn of the Sixth Happiness (for which he received an Ivor Novello Award in 1958), Hobson’s Choice and Whistle Down the Wind.

Arnold began his professional musical life in July 1941 as second trumpet with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Acknowledged as one of the finest players of the day, he eventually became the orchestra’s Principal Trumpet. By the end of the 1940s he was concentrating entirely on composition. The long and close relationship established between Malcolm Arnold and the LPO continues unabated, with the orchestra performing and recording the composer’s music widely.

In 1969 he was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth and was awarded the CBE in 1970. He holds Honorary Doctorates of Music from the Universities of Exeter, Durham and Leicester - and in America from the Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 1983 and is an Hon. R.A.M. and an Hon. F.T.C.L. In 1985 Malcolm Arnold received an Ivor Novello Award for “Outstanding Services to British Music”, the Wavendon Award in 1985, and a knighthood in the 1993 New Years Honours List for his services to music. In 1994 the Victoria College of Music appointed Malcolm Arnold as their President. In 2001 he was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. In 2004 he was also honoured with the Incorporated Society of Musician’s Distinguished Musician Award “for his lifetime’s achievements as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.” In 1989 he received the Freedom of Northampton. In 2003 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Winchester. On 29th June, 2006, the University of Northampton conferred on Malcolm Arnold an Honorary Doctorate.

Throughout his life Malcolm Arnold has maintained a strongly held social conscience. In May 1957, as a guest of the Union of Czechoslovak Composers, he represented the British Musicians Union at the Prague Spring Festival. It was at this time that Arnold first met Shostakovich. To mark the Centenary of the Trades Union Congress, he was commissioned to write the Peterloo Overture; a work premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Festival Hall on 7 June 1968.

His most popular works have a global audience and his finest body of music, the nine symphonies, are available in numerous recordings including two complete cycles on the Chandos and Naxos labels – and, from September 2006, on Decca. Malcolm Arnold’s music has – and continues to be – performed and recorded extensively by leading orchestras both nationally and internationally. His work in musical education has been impressive and consistent. He helped establish and support, through the writing of works and fundraising, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. His belief in contemporary music led him to be an influential advocate for Pierre Boulez’s entry into British musical life.
Special musical tributes took place throughout 2006 to mark Malcolm Arnold's 85th anniversary year.

A revival by the Royal Ballet of the Malcolm Arnold/Fredrick Ashton acclaimed ballet Homage to the Queen, opened on 5 June at the Royal Opera House. Commissioned to honour the Queen’s Coronation, this work was first performed by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden on 2 June, 1953. On 23 September 2006 the Northern Ballet Theatre embarked on a UK tour with the world premiere of a new full length Arnold ballet, The Three Musketeers.  The first Arnold Festival took place on 21st and 22nd October at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton, the composer’s birthplace. Sir Malcolm Arnold died on 23 September 2006.

If you have not heard it, listen to Arnold's Brass Quintet No. 2 here.

Listening Presentation - European Brass Ensembles

 Stockholm Chamber Brass

 

Today in class we listened to recordings of European brass ensembles by European composers. I invited you to "live-blog" this class, so I look forward to reading your posts. 

• Wilhelm Ramsøe - Quartet No. 1 performed by the Ewald Brass Quintet (Ensemble)
  
• Ludwig Maurer - two movements from 12 Kleine Stüke, I. Maestoso and III. Allegro Grazioso performed by Quintetto Infagranti
  
• Henry VIII - two movements from Rose Without a Thorn Suite, II. Pastime with Good Company, III. Adieu! Madame et Ma Maistresse performed by the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
  
• Tielman Susato - La Mourisque as performed by the Belgian Brass
• Michael Praetorius - Courante (from Terpsichore) as performed by the Belgian Brass
• Peter Graham - Metropolis 1927 performed by Ensemble de Cuivre Melodia which was inspired by Fritz Lang's science fiction epic Metropolis 
• Malcom Arnold - Fantasy for Brass Band performed by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band
  
• Anders Hillborg - Brass Quintet as performed by the Stockholm Chamber Brass
• Kamilló Lendvay  - Further Eight Arrogant Ideas, movements:
1. Intrada
2. Ah, Tristan
3. Intermezzino
4. Replication
5. Tango
6. Polkissimo
   

 

 

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/abel-european-brass-ensembles/pl.u-6YpLU8YLBR

Boehme and Lutoslawski

Oskar Böhme (1870-1938) composed the Trompetensextett, Op. 30 in Eb minor around 1906. Written for Cornet, two trumpets, Bass trumpet (Altohorn), Trombone (Tenorhorn) and Tuba (Bariton). Böhme was born in Dresden and in 1897, he moved to St. Petersburg and played in the Mariinsky Theatre orchestra.

Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) was a Polish composer and one of the most famous European composers of the 20th century.  He composed Mini Overture in 1982 and dedicated it to Ursula and Philip Jones, of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, for Ursula's 50th birthday.

From www.lutoslawski.org:

The Mini Overture was originally to be the first piece in a suite ending in a Galop. The impulse for the creation of the Mini Overture (defined by Witold Lutosławski as a "small caricature of an overture") was provided by the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Ursula Jones, wife of Philip Jones.

The barely three-minute composition, dedicated to Walter Strebi, who was the initiator of a project for a collection of pieces for this type of ensemble, does not occupy in Lutosławski's output a place as important as the Epitaph for oboe or Grave for cello. Rather, its rank could perhaps be compared to that of Slides or the two Fanfares - one for Cambridge University and the other for Lancaster University. Yet it has an irresistible charm, which clearly points to the Neoclassical aesthetic of a grotesque scherzo. Short ‘pugnacious' motives seem to resound with the pastiche idioms of Stravinsky from the Histoire du soldat, and where the instruments play unisono or where they resound with lively and regular chords, it would be difficult to recognize the hand of Lutosławski if not told what is being played. Why is that so? This is because here Lutosławski does not apply his special earmark - the technique of aleatoric counterpoint, which in his music from the 80s plays an ever lesser role. A special characteristic of this work is also the fact that it exhibits a particular contrariness: the sunny shine left by the French Neoclassicism is obtained with a construction based on two markedly contrasting 12-tone series which create the outline of sonata form. Thus, in the score composed of three continuously played segments we are dealing with something that is trifling and even entertaining, but also full of finesse and intelligence, like a smartly constructed toy.

 

American Brass Quintet Database

 

Thank you to Dr. Louis Hanzlik for being our guest speaker today. In addition to learning a bit about his background, and sharing resources about historical brass music, he took us on a tour of the American Brass Quintet Database. Their, you can search for brass quintet music using a variety of parameters, including keywords, composer, gender, demographics and grade level. If you register, you can contribute to the database, which functions like a Wiki where composers and brass quintets can share information about new works.