Fine Arts Brass
ECAT Series

Music Philip Wilby: Partita on the Krakov Fanfare; Gordon McPherson: Helensburgh Derive;
John Woolrich: Exploit in White; Edward McGuire: Auriga: the Five Stars; Colin Matthews: A Quick Start; Julian Philips: Brass Studies; Roxanna Panufnik: Spirit Moves (First Movement); Tim Souster: La Marche
Performers Fine Arts Brass
Date 25 October 2004
Venue The Queen's Hall
Address Clerk Street
Reviewer Jonas Green

ECAT (Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust) promotes the work of Scottish musicians "in an international context". They opened their 25th year in fine style with this polished performance of works among the many commissioned by Fine Arts Brass. That group is also 25 years old, though all its founding personnel have now moved on. Their newest member, Katy Pryce on trombone, must be in her first year with them: one would never have guessed, so high is the standard among young professional instrumentalists.

She started the proceedings, in the thrilling surprise opening of Philip Wilby's Partita: a solo trombonist, alone on stage, sounds a fanfare answered by offstage trumpets, and then a clashing echo from horn and tuba. This visual and dramatic use of space is typical of the piece and a reference to its origins in ancient Polish military music.

Fine Arts Brass Ensemble

An entire programme of pieces for such a group, the virtuoso brass quintet, even when as well chosen as this one, can start to sound similar, so individual pieces really benefit from a distinct character. Thus Gordon McPherson's Helensburgh Derive - he was present to explain the title and described it as a damp-sounding piece - did sound much like a wet day in a small town: much tuba walking bass under monochrome harmony and ostinatos.

John Woolrich's Exploit in White was one of the best pieces of the evening and so skilfully written for brass that it needs no gimmicks. The composer's note explains that the work is like the reassembled fragments of five shattered vases. So far so incomprehensible. The music is not; it is fragmentary, but each fragment is internally consistent, often stately in character. The brass writing exploits extremes of volume, range and technique. The trumpets used so many different types of mute that I felt sorry for the Horn (which has only one type of mute available, not used here) until Neil Shewan demonstrated a wide range of hand-stopped effects. Then came a witty "Radio Three avant-garde" section before a wonderful pianissimo ending on whispa mutes.

Edward McGuire's Auriga: the Five Stars made less of an impression. He explained that the five instruments are allocated characters from astronomical myth, but these were seldom apparent to me. After a strikingly effective opening, the music tended to jog along like a set of stylistic exercises. Here, and generally throughout the programme, tonality was never far away; the musical language - thankfully - owed more to jazz than the dreaded serialism.

Colin Matthews' A Quick Start is short, fast and exciting, with all instruments often high in their range, except when they break hilariously into bogus 17th-century passages. The composer didn't plan these; "they appeared and seemed to want to stay". Great fun.

Brass Studies by Julian Philips rather belied its prosaic title, being a satisfying five-movement structure with internal cross-references, often playing off contrasted groups within the ensemble. Its central slow movement was notably different from all other music of the evening: its opening tolling figure developed into passionate lyrical music with rich chord changes.

The movement they played by Roxanna Panufnik, from a longer work, depended on the old trick of using letter names (FABE, for Fine Arts Brass Ensemble) as a basic building block - and also a limiting principle. Ingenious, but it was interesting how the unavailability of certain pitches can make for sameness.

So finally, to Tim Souster's La Marche, conceived as a deconstruction of the march after the manner of Ravel's La Valse. This had elements of Charles Ives, burlesque, and even historical documentary, with each player impersonating a 20th-century dictator: Stalin, Hitler, Che, Mao, and our own Margaret Thatcher. Their variable speaking ability sometimes detracted from the effect, and the piece has none of the subtlety of Ravel's but it was a very entertaining way to end the evening. That, plus an encore of Dizzy Gillespie's Salt Peanuts. You almost do not notice how good these players are, as musicians, as charming performers, and as advocates for contemporary music.

© Jonas Green. 26 October 2004 Published on www.edinburghguide.com. See also Fine Arts Brass