Expanding Brass Chamber Music

Metalfonico: New Music for Brass and Percussion Ensemble/Magnus Martensson, Jon Nelson, Erik Ona New Focus Recordings 413 Total Time:  62:47 Recording:   ****/**** Performance: (*)***/****

Jon Nelson is a trumpeter, composer and professor at the University of Buffalo where he has been since 1998.  Nelson is at the forefront of advocating for new music by living composers and was one of the co-founders for the Meridian Arts Ensemble.  The organization was instrumental in creating a greater appreciation for brass chamber music.  The present release is a compilation that spreads across different voices and approaches mostly across the last 40 years or so.

The album opens with an impressive work by Tom Pierson, Music for a Solemn Occasion (1986), originally written for a friend’s wedding.  The work is filled with rich harmonic writing and some rather high trumpet lines against these full chords.  It makes for an engaging opening to the album and one of the more substantial pieces on the album.  Part of the interest in the release will be hearing how contemporary composers are exploring the harmonic and sound worlds of the brass combinations here.  David Felder’s Incendio (2001) and Shredder (2001) allow for dense harmonies and interesting syncopated climaxes in two very exciting short pieces that have an almost cinematic quality.  The album takes its title from one of the works by Brazilian composer Dimas Sedicias.  Metalfonico (1989) is an exciting dance-influenced piece (its rhythms inspired by the Brazilian frevo).  It follows a stunning introspective work for solo tuba, Raymond My Friend (1998).  Jon Nelson’s own Insomnio is a collage of Bartokian angular rhythms and rock-inspired pastiche a la Frank Zappa.  There is also an example of current avantgarde style options in Lucre Iota (2005) from Brian McWhorter, who writes under the name “boiled jar”.

Milton Babbit’s Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet (1987) is another of those intricately-composed works where specific lines and motives are eventually transformed into each of the performers in what can be perceived as a more aleatoric style.  On disc this is somewhat harder to pull off but the spatial arrangement is somewhat apparent in the imaging of the recording.  There are also two more familiar names among the mix here.  In this same sort of scientific compositional approach is Iannis Xenakis’ Khal Perr (1983) which creates intriguing blends of sound and propulsive motion.  Perhaps the most famous is Charles Ives’ From the Steeples and the Mountains (1901).  Here one gets a clear sense of the experimental sound world of the composer and the avantgarde style that was ahead of its time in many ways.  Two additional traditional works are also included as a sort of final encore collection at the end of the album.  This includes a delightful arrangement of Perez Prado’s Mambo # 5 and the Canzona XXV of Giovanni Gabrielli.

Metalfonico is overall an excellent collection of engaging music that can stretch the ears from time to time.  It is not quite clear when the recordings all were made as pieces were written after the dates of what are included in the booklet. Some tracks appear to be from live sources.

Interesting brass colors are explored in a multitude of ways in often quite dramatic music.  For those who are fans of science fiction television writing there might be some perceived overlap as the type of ensembles often used in that period created backdrops in often advanced harmonic styles that parallel this unique concert music.  Fans of that genre of music will likely find equally interesting music here as well which makes the release more than just an esoteric exploration of music for brass musicians.