Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 26, 1993 TAG: 9310260238
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In a dazzling display of virtuosity, the Telarc recording artists showed a distinctly younger-than-average chamber music crowd just what the American school of brass playing is all about.
Organ-like sonorities; warm, fat tone; flawless intonation; and a rich blend added up to an object lesson in why American brass players are the best in the world.
It may have been the high percentage of high school and college-age kids in the audience that was responsible for a degree of appreciation that was, shall we say, somewhat more enthusiastic than usual.
This crowd didn't just settle for a few bravos and a standing ovation. They yelled, they screamed, they whistled and - toward the end of the evening - sounded at times more like like an Indian scalping party than a staid hall of classical music fans. It was one bunch of satisfied customers.
There was a lot to be thankful for. The intuitive sense of ensemble displayed by this group - though two of the members joined less than a year ago - the easy freedom that is the fruit of technical mastery, and a rainbow of colors and timbres revealed a chamber ensemble that is the expressive equal of any string quartet or piano trio around.
The Empires' program was roughly chronological, staying in the Baroque era before intermission and moving from the Romantic era through contemporary music afterward. Half the pleasure of the concert was due to imaginative arrangements that took artful advantage of the quintet's resources.
Baroque music, with its polyphonic weft and weave of independent voices, is especially suited to brass instruments. Three Bach arrangements were perhaps the highlight of the first-half set.
Two contrapunti from "The Art of the Fugue" and the so-called "Little" Fugue in G Minor were magnificent. The pure tones of these players, the cleanly attacked notes and the thundering power the five players summoned in the fortissimo passages made for a thoroughly musical experience.
First trumpet Rolf Smedvig frequently switched between B-flat trumpet, D trumpet and piccolo trumpet in these pieces, the "Canzona bergamasca" of Samuel Scheidt and the "Elizabethan Dance Suite" of Anthony Holborne. Second trumpet Jeffrey Curnow switched to flugelhorn during a sequence from Henry Purcell's "The Fairy Queen." The conical-bore instrument added mellow coloration to the group's tonal palette.
A few clams will creep into any brass performance outside a recording studio, and for the merely good player they signal fatigue and tend to get more frequent with each new piece. But both Smedvig and Curnow got better as the evening progressed, nailing high notes more reliably as the arrangements got harder and harder.
The post-intermission half of the concert featured the "Procession of the Nobles" from "Mlada" by Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the "Polovtsian Dances" from Borodin's "Prince Igor" and the "Wedding Dance and Troika" from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije."
Eric Ruske was featured in Rossini's showpiece, "Prelude, Theme and Variations." An arrangement of the "Procession of the Sardar" by Ippolitov-Ivanov began with a stratospherically high Muslim prayer call from Smedvig on the piccolo trumpet and Ruske on the horn.
Also featured were the mellow "Arabian Dance" from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker," and the "Farandole" from Bizet's "L'Arlesienne."
The Empire Brass wound up the scheduled part of the concert with a witty and difficult set from Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story" and a brass transcription of the "Simple Gifts" section of Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring." In the latter, tubist Ken Amis took a break and trumpeter Curnow again switched to the flugelhorn.
The Olin Hall crowd was not about to let this group escape without an encore, springing to its feet for an almost instantaneous standing ovation.
Responding to the screams, yells and shouts of bravo, the Empires returned for a corny but effective arrangement of "76 Trombones," which featured trombonist and Hopewell native R. Douglas Wright. The piece was a showy and almost incredibly difficult vehicle for Wright, but he pulled it off with room to spare.
Seth Williamson produces news features and a classical music program on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.
by CNB