Reinhold Friedrich (the album's rather geeky title refers to the quintet-plus-soloist configuration of much of the music) reverses the usual order of things, beginning with the thorniest contemporary work and proceeding to Renaissance sounds (albeit filtered through contemporary ears), Romanticism, and jazz (which comes in a pretty thorny variety itself here). Among the surprises are how well the group of three pieces from Respighi's Antiche Danze ed Arie work in the small-scale brass quintet format; the arrangements are ...
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Reinhold Friedrich (the album's rather geeky title refers to the quintet-plus-soloist configuration of much of the music) reverses the usual order of things, beginning with the thorniest contemporary work and proceeding to Renaissance sounds (albeit filtered through contemporary ears), Romanticism, and jazz (which comes in a pretty thorny variety itself here). Among the surprises are how well the group of three pieces from Respighi's Antiche Danze ed Arie work in the small-scale brass quintet format; the arrangements are skillfully done in such a way as to make the music seem as if it's advancing another step toward its own roots. The opening contemporary piece by Icelandic composer Áskell Másson, a concerto for solo trumpet and brass quintet, is claimed to set the soloist against "colors" and "images of the past," with "differing and manifold shadows flickering" around the soloist, but these effects may be rather difficult for the listener to divine. The Brass Sextet in E flat minor, Op. 30, of...
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