Class Brass: Fire Dance
Empire Brass
The Naumberg Award-winning Empire Brass is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary as North America’s premier brass quintet. The five musicians perform over 100 concerts a year, both in the United States and abroad. Recently the group has expanded its original quintet instrumentation to include drummer Steve Wilkes, who brings to the pieces on Class Brass: Fire Dance not only a wider range of sonorities, but also a heightened sense of their dynamic and rhythmic possibilities.
Class Brass: Fire Dance features innovative and virtuosic arrangements, mostly by first trumpeter and founding member Rolf Smedvig, of a diverse repertoire that ranges from the sixteenth-century dance music of Susato to the Presto Barbaro from On the Waterfront by Bernstein. A group of talented guest musicians joins the ensemble, adding to the impact of orchestral works such as Ravel’s Boléro, Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets, and three of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, Opus 46. Also featured is Albinoni’s Concerto in C Major for trumpet and organ, transcribed for brass quintet.
TRACKLISTING
- 1. Ravel: Bolero
- 2. Beethoven: Turkish March from The Ruins of Athens
- 3. Holst: Jupiter from The Planets
- 4. Moussorgsky: II Vecchio Castello (The Old Castle) from Pictures at an Exhibition
- 5. Albinoni: Concerto in C major for Trumpet and Organ: I. Grave
- 6. Albinoni: Concerto in C major for Trumpet and Organ: II. Allegro
- 7. Albinoni: Concerto in C major for Trumpet and Organ: III. Adagio
- 8. Albinoni: Concerto in C major for Trumpet and Organ: IV. Allegro
- 9. Satie: Gnossienne No. 2
- 10. Dvorak: Slavonic Dances No. 1, Op. 46
- 11. Falla: Ritual Fire Dance from El amor brujo
- 12. Prokofiev: Morning Dance from Romeo and Juliet
- 13. Mozart: Rondo alla turca from Sonata in A Major
- 14. trad: Two Celtic Jigs: Kesh and Kid on the Mountain
- 15. Mendez: Romanza
- 16. Dvorak: Slavonic Dance No. 5, Op. 46
- 17. Susato: Rondo from Danserye (1551)
- 18. Bartok: Bagpipe Music
- 19. Bartok: Bagpipes
- 20. Debussy: Quant j'ai ouy le tabourin (When I Heard the Drums Playing)
- 21. Dvorak: Slavonic Dance No. 7, Op. 46
- 22. Bernstein: Presto Barbaro from On the Waterfront
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EMPIRE BRASS
RECENT RELATED RELEASE
The Bach selections were performed on the Aeolian-Skinner organ at Methuen Memorial Music Hall in Methuen, MA. The Franck selections were… MORE
MORE RELEASES FROM EMPIRE BRASS
RELATED ARTISTS
