Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass Live (Gabrieli, Bach, Revueltas, Prokofiev, Grainger, Walton) (conducted by Dale Clevenger, Jay Friedman, Michael Mulcahy & Mark Ridenour)

Album review

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has long been renowned for the sound of its brass section. This CD features the symphony's brass in a selection of pieces that span almost 250 years, including some works originally written for brass and some transcriptions of works for keyboard, orchestra, or band. It's a diverse and appealing program that effectively shows off the players' virtuosity and should interest any fans of brass. The three Renaissance antiphonal pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli are especially successful highlighting their agility; their very clean handling of the music's rapid-fire pyrotechnics is hugely impressive. The various voices of Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor shine out with absolute clarity in this arrangement that projects the work's contrapuntal complexities with gleaming clarity. In contrast to the refined elegance of the Bach is the brutal aggressiveness of Silvestre Revueltas' powerful Sensemaya, originally for orchestra, which has a rhythmic propulsiveness reminiscent of The Rite of Spring. Pieces like Walton's Crown Imperial and Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy let the listener hear the radiance and Romantic warmth the players can produce. In some of the pieces, the brass ensemble is augmented by percussion, string bass, and clarinet. Much credit goes to the various arrangers, whose skill and imagination make these pieces sound as if they had originally been conceived for brass ensemble. The sound of the album on CSO, the Chicago Symphony's own label, is clean and bright, but it also has plenty of warmth. The spatial separation of the players in the Gabrieli is handled especially well. This is a recording that fans of brass will not want to miss.
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