Posted by Rick Denney on January 07, 2001 at 10:23:36:
In Reply to: Re: recordings posted by Joey on January 05, 2001 at 07:24:06:
Which Canadian Brass is that? Their personnel have changed many times.
I have from time to time wished they would devote an album to the great modern literature for brass quintet, and sometimes I thought (before I had played professionally and learned better) that they pandered to the audience. But the older and more experienced I get, the more I respect what they have accomplished, and the doors that they have opened for brass ensembles.
There may be players out there with better technique or tone (maybe), but you'll find few of them who can, night after night, entertain audiences with the same music, avoiding staleness and somehow not getting exhausted by all the touring. They can sit down a play a piece of music that some of them have played perhaps thousands of times on stage, and put energy into it the same as if they had just worked it up and were excited to be performing it the first time. And they can play that piece of music that must bore them to tears with a huge, realized commitment to technical mastery. I've seen them many times, on stage, in clinics, and even once performed in a band that shared the stage with them, and I'm amazed that a quick run-through of a request piece for a crowd mostly consisting of school kids will display no lapses of concentration, no slips, no missed notes, no fracks, no obvious imperfections--nothing to hint that it is a clinic audience in San Antonio and not a crowd of music critics in Carnegie Hall.
No chastisement here; everyone is entitled to their opinions. It helps, though, to understand why musicians are such big fans of the Canadian Brass.
Rick "focusing on what's good" Denney