TromboneChat

Hi everyone,

Me and my quintet are trying to put together a program and looking for inspiration. What’re everyone’s favorite brass quintet pieces and arrangements?

We've had a few topics on this before and you might want to do a little searching.

My favorite quintet arrangement is "Tribute to MGM". It's a collection of tunes from great MGM movies. We were able to use parts of it if we didn't want to go through the whole thing -- the arrangement lets you do that.

Another great arrangement is "Sound of Music".

Some others:

"Die Bankelsangerlieder" (Robert King)
HMS Pinafore
West Side Story (arr. Jack Gale). You may want to make copies of the parts so you can cut and paste to cover really bad page turns.

There are a bunch of quintet arrangements by Robert King and they are relatively inexpensive and sound really good.

If you are really on a budget, look in IMSLP. There are a lot of quintet arrangements, some of which are actually good, for free.

If you can get the Americana Collection books, use the 1st trumpet, 2nd trumpet, horn, baritone, and tuba books to get inexpensive arrangements of "evergreen" tunes.

If your trombone player is good, the Canadian Brass "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" will let him strut his stuff. There's a simpler arrangement in the Canadian Brass Intermediate book that doesn't really feature the trombone.

Depends on what styles you're talking about. Benedictus by Karl Jenkins is a nice short piece. Modern but not dissonant. Puttin On the Ritz (Irving Berlin) is a great early jazz tune that has been arranged for quintet. Challenging and fun to play and listen to. Canadian Brass puts out books of standard short pieces. Saints Hallelujah is fun and people recognize it.

If you're looking for something in a pop vein, check out Musescore. You have to be careful there because the quality can vary, but there is some usable stuff.

Of the Bach classics, I like the Fugue in G (The Little).

If you're looking for something larger, there's American in Paris arranged by Taillard, Suite from the Monteregian Hills by Calvert, and of course the standards like Ewald et al.

If you're putting together a Christmas concert, that's a whole different list.

How good are the players in your quintet?

My favorite to play and listen to (thanks to the Philip Jones Brass Quintet LP I bought decades ago) is the Victor Ewald SYMPHONY for Brass Quintet. Demanding. Satisfying.

What is your target audience?

Is it a particular event/concert/recital ?

How long is the programme/concert

What standard are the players, particularly the horn?

Are your trumpets comfortable across all instruments including pic?

How much rehearsal time before the event ?

Check out Brian Sadler’s website. Excellent arranger from one of the service bands. He has a wide variety of compositions and arrangements, some paid and others free. I had great success with his arrangement of “God Bless the USA” a couple years ago.

Jessica Meyer's Luminosity is one of my favorite brass quintets - has a nice trombone solo in it, and might take some rehearsal time, but is worth it imho.


Anthony Barfield's Gravity is another outstanding piece.

Thank you everyone for your initial suggestions! I have a lot of listening to do.

There's no particular target audience, and it is for a recital with other chamber groups. We're aiming for roughly 15 minutes worth of content.

We're all varying degrees of adult amateur. To get an idea of our skill level some programs we're considering are:
Ewald 1
Anthony Dilorenzo's Go, something slower but we're not sure what, and Scherzo (Cheetham)
Ewald 3

One trumpet player is comfortable with everything, the other only plays Bb

And we'll be performing in 3-6 months TBD

Good luck!

Note that Ewald wrote 3 pieces each with 3 movements. Playing two of them would exceed your time limit. Do you mean playing Movements 1 and 3 of the Ewald Symphony #1?

Oh no sorry those were all complete program options. So the entirety of Ewald quintet 1 was one option, Go Scherzo and TBD was another option, and the entirety of Ewald quintet 3 was the last (so far).

Arthur Frackenpohl’s “Brass Quintet” is fun to play and is pretty accessible for the audience. While written for tuba it works really well with bass trombone. It comes in around 12 minutes.

My favorite brass quintet piece is my arrangement of Bach's Passacaglia And Fugue In C Minor (transposed to G minor), but that's mostly because I put in a lot of work.

Computer playback video for reference:

That’s good thx for sharing

1st movt Battle Suite Samuel Schiedt is always a good opener runs around 1.45mins

Then 2-3 pieces that show the versatility of a brass quintet in both style and genre


You have 3+ months to rehearse, work on 10-12 pieces, gives you enough to do a recording.

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 8:19 pm My favorite brass quintet piece is my arrangement of Bach's Passacaglia And Fugue In C Minor (transposed to G minor), but that's mostly because I put in a lot of work.

Nice work, Andrew! It was worth the effort.

The Aardworks Blue and Green books play themselves, and I've got more compliments playing from those easy books than any "serious" brass quintet repertoire. Weird gigs too, playing for people eating sandwiches, or for some city function, all music to be ignored by. But you play Praetorius out of that book and the sandwich eaters will be coming up after the event saying they never knew brass could sound like that and what it was that we were playing.

You can play the crap out of some serious piece and get crickets. Or you can play Hornpipe from Water Music out of that blue book and have people smiling. I love it.

Posaunus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 1:23 pm

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 8:19 pm My favorite brass quintet piece is my arrangement of Bach's Passacaglia And Fugue In C Minor (transposed to G minor), but that's mostly because I put in a lot of work.

Nice work, Andrew! It was worth the effort.

Thank you!!

For me going back some years it’s gotta be Canadian Brass playing toccata and fugue in d minor. No trombone, but a euphonium, and doesn’t get much better than that with the 2 trumpets!

piezer wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 10:36 am Hi everyone,

Me and my quintet are trying to put together a program and looking for inspiration. What’re everyone’s favorite brass quintet pieces and arrangements?

Here is our program for a concert this evening. Open air concert outside, in a park like setting. Not a "bad" piece among them.

Doug
------------

August 13, 2023 - 6:00 p.m.
Program

Galliard Battaglia (from Battle Suite) - Samuel Scheidt - Arr. Phillip Jones
Sheep May Safely Graze - Bach/Watts
Fancies, Toyes and Dreames - Giles Farnaby/Howarth
1. The Old Spagnoletta
2. His Rest
3. Tell mee Daphne
6. The New Sa-hoo
Amazing Grace - arr. Paul Chauvin
Brass Quintet No. 1, Op. 73 - Malcolm Arnold
1. Allegro vivace
Stephen Foster Medley - arr. Jack Gale
- Short Break -
Scherzo - John Cheetham
Big Band Selects - arr. Paul Chauvin
Night and Day - Porter/ Chauvin
Americana Medley II - arr Paul Chauvin
Hang on Sloopy! - arr.
Aint Misbehavin’ - Waller/Norris

The Foster is a great piece of music, but be careful, you may find some academic nannies want to take you to task for it. The music is wonderful.

WilliamLang wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:40 pm Jessica Meyer's Luminosity is one of my favorite brass quintets - has a nice trombone solo in it, and might take some rehearsal time, but is worth it imho.


Anthony Barfield's Gravity is another outstanding piece.

I’ve performed both of these - the Meyer is great for the audience, and is rewarding to perform, but takes a lot of commitment and confidence from the ensemble to make it come across properly.

The Barfield has some tricky stuff but is a bit easier from the standpoint of everyone can practice their parts individually and it comes together pretty easily after that.

Don’t overlook renaissance music - Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Byrd, etc. as options.

Calvert’s Suite from the Monteregian Hills would also fit your time slot (~10 minutes) and is approachable for audience while not being boring to play!