Trumpeter Jon Nelson releases his second album on New Focus, Metalofonico, a collection of works for brass ensemble with percussion and electric guitar by luminary figures of contemporary composition including Milton Babbitt, David Felder, Tom Pierson, as well as some from older eras including Charles Ives and Giovanni Gabrieli. Nelson has assembled an impressive group of versatile musicians who can navigate many styles with ease and expression.
# | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Time |
---|---|---|---|
Total Time | 62:47 | ||
01 | Music for a Solemn Occasion | Music for a Solemn Occasion | 11:13 |
02 | Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet | Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet | 3:38 |
03 | Incendio | Incendio | 5:08 |
04 | Shredder | Shredder | 5:13 |
05 | Khal Perr | Khal Perr | 9:47 |
06 | From the Steeples And The Mountains | From the Steeples And The Mountains | 4:10 |
07 | Insomnio | Insomnio | 7:39 |
08 | Raymond My Friend | Raymond My Friend | 3:35 |
09 | Metalofonico | Metalofonico | 2:22 |
10 | Mambo #5 (arr. Nelson) | Mambo #5 (arr. Nelson) | 2:39 |
11 | Canzona XXV (arr. Hanzlik) | Canzona XXV (arr. Hanzlik) | 4:14 |
12 | Lucre Iota | Lucre Iota | 2:15 |
13 | tuba out take | tuba out take | 0:54 |
Trumpeter Jon Nelson is a tireless advocate for music for brass instruments, commissioning and championing countless new works for various combinations, as an ensemble leader, soloist, and collaborator. On this release, he is at the helm of Metalofonico (both the album title and the ensemble) for a collection of works for brass and percussion that highlight the versatility of the instrumentation and the performers. The curation of the album underscores the unique role brass music has played in diverse musical cultures over several centuries, the place it has occupied today within the recent avant-garde, and the impressive flexibility that many elite brass performers bring to music in different styles.
The recording opens with Tom Pierson’s Music for a Solemn Occasion (1986), originally written to be included in the wedding of two of Pierson’s friends. The piece opens with majestic, rich harmonies before percolating and accumulating repeated figures passed through the ensemble that articulate a similar pitch language to the opening, now fragmented. The music for the bridal procession in the second half of the piece is in a more traditional vein, featuring an expansive first trumpet line over resonant chords.
Milton Babbitt’s music is rich with structural relationships, symmetries, and organizational designs that define the shape of individual pieces, creating a sense of unity amidst otherwise complex materials. In his Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet, Babbitt arranges the ensemble into two quasi-antiphonal groups, alluding to the long tradition of spatially organized, responsive brass groups. While composers like Gabrieli presented this opposition transparently, Babbitt embeds it within a a motet of sorts that is split between the two sextets, with all of the instruments traversing all of the material by the end of the short work.
Read MoreAn even more extreme assemblage of material from very different eras – consisting of compositions written during a period of more than 400 years – appears on a New Focus Recordings release featuring trumpeter Jon Nelson (born 1956) and an ensemble that includes brass, percussion and electric guitar. And if that sounds like a thoroughly weird instrumental combination for a work by Giovanni Gabrieli (1558-1613) – well, it is. Yet the arrangement by Louis Hanzlik of Gabrieli’s Canzona No. 25 is actually respectful and quite effective as heard here – a pleasant surprise indeed. From the Steeples and the Mountains by Charles Ives (1874-1954) does not come across quite as well, but Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet by Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) is very well-played indeed, although musically not fully convincing. The longest work on the CD is Music for a Solemn Occasion by Tom Pierson (born 1954), a work written for a wedding rather than anything funereal – this is a piece whose highly dissonant opening chords lead to an extended exploration of sonorities rather than a focus on emotional depth. In all, there are 13 works here, two of them by Brazilian composer Dimas Sedicias (1930-2002): Raymond My Friend, for tuba solo and notable for the extreme low notes with which it opens; and Metalofonico, which starts with a shrill whistle and immediately becomes a riotous proclamation of dance music (the CD concludes with a third Sedicias item, Tuba Out Take). One other composer is heard more than once: David Felder (born 1953), whose Incendio (an arrangement of a work originally for chamber choir) progresses gently at first, then becomes strongly chordal; and Shredder, a more-dramatic work built over timpani. Also on the CD are Khal Perr by Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), a work of complex and constantly shifting soundscapes; the very bright and thoroughly engaging Mambo #5 (arranged for winds by Nelson) by Dámaso Pérez Prado (1916-1989); Nelson’s own Insomnio, built on the sounds of a drum set and featuring strong contrasts between outgoing and quiet material; and Lucre Iota by Brian McWhorter (born 1975) writing as “boiled jar” – this being a self-consciously avant-garde work that uses mechanistic raucousness to establish its bona fides with audiences inclined to present themselves as an “in” crowd. To the extent that anything ties together this disparate material, it is the skillful playing of Nelson and his ensemble: the CD is certainly attractive from an aural perspective for those who fancy brass combinations and recombinations. But this (+++) mixed bag of a disc, despite being likely to appeal to enthusiasts for brass music, is not particularly effective in blending and contrasting works from very different time periods, written in very different styles, by composers of widely varying predilections. It will likely be most attractive to brass and percussion players who can appreciate the nuances of the scoring and arrangements of the various pieces, and can imagine themselves as part of the ensemble delivering these enthusiastic renditions of highly varied material.
— Mark Estren, 8.22.2024