National Brass Virtuosi

March 23rd 2002
Rice University

The National Brass Virtuosi is a brass quintet comprised of members of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony and the Houston Symphony Orchestra:

Michael Sachs - Trumpet - Cleveland
Mark Neihaus - Trumpet - Milwaukee
Michael Mayhew - Horn - Cleveland
Richard Stout - Trombone - Cleveland
Dave Kirk - Tuba - Houston

I was notified of this performance by email with a message from Dave Kirk. I was excited about it because I've always wanted to hear Mike Sachs play. Mike was once a member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and he is almost a trumpet legend here in town. So I was greatly anticipating this performance.

An Embarrassing Moment

The room the quintet performed in was a small lecture hall, very intimate.....maybe too intimate for someone who has his eight year old son with him. :-)

I take Alex to a lot of concerts, both concerts I attend in the audience and also concerts I perform in. He is very well behaved most of the time. He has to be or I wouldn't take him. But this was a little different because the room was so intimate and even to whisper you feel as if you're broadcasting what you say to everyone in the room. 

Alex was asking me why I wasn't on stage. He was a little confused because he had been to three of my own performances already that week. So while I was explaining my reason for being there, the quintet began their first piece. In a bigger, less intimate hall, I wouldn't have felt so embarrassed about it.

And I guess the reason I'm telling you about this is to show just how good of a situation this was. The room we were in is excellently built, in my opinion. We've rehearsed in there before with the Texas Brass and I always thought it would make a great recital venue for smaller audiences. 

So here we were, in such close proximity with such great players....ready to hear them, no, to experiences their sounds and musicianship in ways that are simply not possible in their home symphony halls. 

"Ricercare" by Andrea Gabrieli, arr. Neihaus

The first piece of the performance was a Gabrieli arrangement written by one of the trumpet players, Mark Neihaus. He did really good work on this piece and I need to talk to Dave Kirk about the possibility of purchasing a copy from Mark. I'm having trouble recalling the particulars of the piece, but it gave me the impression that this is a much more virtuosic work than any of the Gabrieli compositions that I'm familiar with. There was a high level of intensity exhibited on this piece, making it a great opener for the performance. 

"Quintet No. 3" by Victor Ewald

For the Ewald, the trumpet players moved to one side of the group while the trombone player moved to the front left (stage left). Also, the trumpets switched to B Flat trumpets, which they played for the rest of the performance. 

I thought it was significant that they played on B Flat trumpets for most of the concert. I have always enjoyed the sound of the B Flat in smaller ensembles. I know I'm over generalizing and maybe this has nothing to do with their reasons for using the B Flats, but I've always felt that the sound of the B Flat trumpets blends better in a small brass ensemble. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Ewald quintets, they are some of the ONLY Romantic brass chamber pieces written specifically and originally for brass. If I'm not mistaken, the original instrumentation varies slightly from today's standard quintet instrumentation, but they are commonly performed this way.

"Triangles" by John Stevens

Triangles features the low brass trio; horn, trombone and tuba. Dave Kirk introduced the work as being representative of it's author's experience. By that he means that it includes a variety of textures and styles ranging from modern "classical" styles to more commercial styles. From previous conversations with Dave, I know how much respect he has for this kind of musical variety and it was a pleasure to experience the presentation. 

One thing I really liked about this piece is the use of mutes. I guess I had never heard the muted tuba in a brass quintet. It gave me all kinds of ideas.....but two weeks too late, I'm afraid. I just published my 21 Brass Quintets.

"Laudes" by Jan Bach

This was my favorite piece in the concert. I'm not very familiar with Jan Bach's works. The only work of his I had heard in the past was a tape my friend, Chris Parks, sent of his brass quintet at Boston University. But I think I will quickly become a big fan of his writing.

It's a modern piece, very French sounding if I'm not mistaken. I noticed something in this piece that was equally noticeable in the tape that Chris sent me. There's a lot of what I have learned to call "pyramids" in in these pieces. Pyramids are musical effects achieved when each part plays a pitch in the chord but all at different times. Some people call these "bell tones". This effect creates a building tension, especially when used in the way that Jan Bach uses it. He uses dissonant intervals and the entrances are in irregular rhythms. 

I guess that's one of the things that separates modern music from traditional. Modern music utilizes more effects than traditional musics of the past. Compositional devices are used merely for the sounds they produce and not necessarily of the functional roles they play in the melodic or harmonic structure of the music. And that's what makes Jan Bach's pieces different from other brass works is his use of these effects (this being based on my limited experience listening to his music).

Overall Performance

The ensemble was billed as the "National Brass Virtuosi" and their performance seems to have made that point very clear. In many ways, this was very difficult music and it was performed effortlessly. It was certainly a virtuosic performance.

But this is not to take away from other aspects of their performance. Take pitch for example. They say that no one ever notices good pitch. You don't notice pitch until it's bad or until there are specific pitch problems. But for some reason, I noticed the pitch in their ensemble playing and it was fantastic. 

And their performance was just as expressive as it was virtuosic. The opener was "in your face" flashy kind of playing which was greatly contrasted with the more soupy sweet lyricism necessary to make the Ewalds sound right. 

I thought that they did all of this very well. Extremely well considering that they are not a regular performing ensemble. This was a project that Dave Kirk and Mike Sachs have been wanting to put together for a number of years. So I think they did a heck of a job for their first outing and I hope they make some more appearances in the future. 

Mike Sachs

I have to admit that, although I would have attended the performance whether Mike Sachs was in the group or not, I was greatly anticipating the opportunity to finally hear his playing. And in such an intimate context no less. 

To me, Mike Sachs is a Houston legend. He was a member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra up until the year I came to Houston. Friends of mine have studied with him and I've been hearing stories about him and his playing over all these years. 

One of the most meaningful stories comes from Dick Schaffer. I studied with Schaffer for about two and a half years and during that time I still wanted to be an orchestral player. So we spent most of our lesson time working to meet that objective. 

I don't exactly remember how the subject came up, but Schaffer told me that he was on the audition committee when Mike Sachs won the Houston audition. He told me that the vote was unanimous. In a later lesson, I asked him what it was about Sachs' playing that caused the committee to know that he was the right candidate for the job. His response has stayed with me over all these years. He said,

"When Mike Sachs played, you could actually feel his confidence. There was no uncertainty to his playing at all." (not an exact quote)

Like I said, this statement stuck in my mind for years and became the goal that I worked towards while I was pursuing the orchestral "thing". 

So, after hearing all of these stories, I was thrilled with the prospects of hearing him in this performance. I wanted to hear what Schaffer was talking about. I wanted to see if he would communicate that same confidence to me. 

Did he?

He most certainly did. It was almost unnatural. I don't mean that in a negative nor critical way. It's just that I've come to expect a certain degree of "iffy-ness" from brass players. Even the greatest players sometimes sound as if they lack conviction in their playing (and I STRESS "sometimes")......especially when performing very technical pieces like the ones programmed on this concert.

For this reason, I would LOVE to see Sachs do some solo recordings. I checked a few internet sources and didn't find any listed. With the kind of gusto and conviction he plays with, he could easily be one of the greatest trumpet soloists of our day. 

Coming Back Down to Earth