Apart from the droll cover art, which riffs on Herb Alpert's 1965 hit album, Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Burana in Brass by the Washington Symphonic Brass is a collection of skillful and frequently witty transcriptions that almost completely work. Most of the selections are effective showpieces for this extraordinary ensemble from the District of Columbia, and the pièce de résistance is undeniably the suite extracted from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, scored here for brass, percussion, and piano; the bombast of this ...
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Apart from the droll cover art, which riffs on Herb Alpert's 1965 hit album, Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Burana in Brass by the Washington Symphonic Brass is a collection of skillful and frequently witty transcriptions that almost completely work. Most of the selections are effective showpieces for this extraordinary ensemble from the District of Columbia, and the pièce de résistance is undeniably the suite extracted from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, scored here for brass, percussion, and piano; the bombast of this popular cantata is certainly taken into account -- O Fortuna is as forceful as this group can make it sound -- yet subtler aspects of the orchestration in subdued numbers are not missed in this tasteful version by trumpeter and arranger, Phil Snedecor, who is also responsible for scoring the remaining tracks. The "Marche au supplice" from Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is especially vivid, thanks to the retention of much of the original's spectacular brass writing; and...
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