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Home , Brass quintet, Joan Tower

THE AMERICAN BRASS continues to swell the repertoire with new music. Celebrating the ensemble’s golden anniversary this season, these five musicians are looking forward, not back.

36 november/december 2010 Opposite: Today’s ABQ (clockwise from upper left): Raymond Mase, David Wakefield, Michael Powell, John Rojak, Kevin Cobb. left: With in 1974; and in 1991.

by Chester Lane

ordon Beeferman’s Brass Quintet the ABQ’s commissioning, performance, each member contributing ideas, consult- is nothing if not difficult. At and research activities. ing with me about every detail. And when Gtimes, the microtonal composi- Huang Ruo’s The Three Tenses is another you hear them play the piece, it doesn’t tion requires the players to bend notes a work with demanding and unusual require- sound difficult. They make it happen.” third of a half step. The composer told ments. Like the Beeferman quintet, it was The Beeferman and Huang Ruo com- the , the work’s commissioned with support from the missions are just two of the eleven original first performers, that he “wanted to give Jerome Foundation’s Emerging Composers works, all premiered in the past decade, listeners a feeling of discomfort.” But as program. One of Huang Ruo’s goals was included in State of the Art: The ABQ at 50, John Rojak, the ABQ’s bass trombonist, for the , without using mutes (“I a double CD released this fall by Summit tells audiences, “He didn’t realize what like the organic, natural brass sound,” he Records. State of the Art is a testament to discomfort he was giving to the performers!” says) to imitate the Tibetan suona, a - the seriousness of the ABQ’s ongoing Celebrating the ensemble’s 50th anni- like instrument used for ceremonial occa- mission: while the ensemble has now pre- versary this season, the ABQ’s current sions. And the parts call for miered more than a hundred works and members—Raymond Mase and Kevin multiphonics, in which the tenor and bass amassed a discography of 54 recordings, it Cobb, ; David Wakefield, horn; are meant to evoke Tibetan chose not to simply produce a “nostalgic Michael Powell, tenor trombone; and throat-singing. To get the desired effect, compilation of ABQ highlights from the Rojak—could be excused if they opted for Huang Ruo had the trombonists sing major past” (as trumpeter Raymond Mase writes some laurel-resting. But instead, the group and minor seconds and unisons. “After I in the CD’s liner notes), but to present “a makes a priority of discomfiting challenges finished working on that piece,” says Rojak, preview of the future that we hope will like the Beeferman work. The results have “I was actually thinking I should go back and inspire chamber music enthusiasts and been overwhelming: In 1960, the year of retake my ear-training test from school.” brass players well beyond this ABQ 50th the ABQ’s founding, the brass quintet Huang Ruo admits that The Three Tenses anniversary milestone.” repertoire was sparse. But now it comprises has its difficulties. But what he witnessed The official anniversary concert took nearly 1,600 works, and many of the most when he worked with the ensemble was place at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on important of these are a direct result of their “systematic way of rehearsing, with October 15, when the ABQ’s five members

37 Kevin Cobb (1998)

John D. Rojak (1991)

Michael Powell (1983) Chris Gekker (1981)

John Aley (1978) Ronald Borror (1977) David Wakefield (1976) Raymond Mase (1973) Herbert Rankin (1972)

Douglas Edelman Louis Ranger (1970) (1970) C D E

Edward Birdwell John Eckert (1965) Gerard Schwarz (1965) (1965) A • Allan Dean (1964) Robert Biddlecome Richard Happe (1963) (1963) • Daniel Cowan (1962) Ronald Anderson B (1962) Gilbert Cohen Arnold Fromme Arthur Goldstein Theodore Weis Robert Heinrich (1960) (1960) (1960) (1960) (1960) BASS TROMBONE HORN TRUMPET TRUMPET TROMBONE american brass quintet FAMILY TREE

A C E

B D Circa 1965

38 november/december 2010 Mase. “The players paid for it themselves, recognizing that it would kind of put them on the map in terms of getting press. It’s a real tour-de-force for quintet—a very color- ful piece that throws everything in, virtuosic for every instrument. Everyone acknowl- edged it as a great piece, and it set the stage for what the group would try to do in the coming years.” More new American music soon followed, with such commissioned works as the Brass Evaluating a recording take, with producer Judith Sherman Quintet by Alvin Brehm and the for Brass Quintet, Strings and Percussion were joined onstage by a large contingent least since Gabrieli’s time, the brass quintet by Alvin Etler getting a fair amount of play. of their current and former Juilliard School as a discrete entity dates only from the mid- “The work we always point to from the students. As usual, the program included a 20th century, according to Mase. “After ’70s,” says Mase, “is Elliott Carter’s Brass substantial dose of contemporary fare: Joan servicemen came back from World War II, Quintet. I had just joined the previous year, Tower’s Copperwave­ , commissioned by The conservatories were sort of overrun with and the group was looking for a different Juilliard School for its centennial in 2006 brass players, and brass chamber music was kind of presence in the field. No one really and now a staple of the ABQ repertoire, and something that a lot of them started to get knew if Carter would write a Brass Quintet two New York premieres, David Sampson’s interested in. But it wasn’t necessarily going for us, or how it would turn out, but this Chants and Flourishes (a double quintet written to be a quintet; five wasn’t established as the commission was another aggressive move, to commemorate both the ABQ anniversary standard number of players until, let’s say, like the Whittenberg. It’s one long, 18-min- and the composer’s 25-year relationship the 1950s. Robert King, a well-established ute movement, kind of unbelievable. I look with the ensemble) and Trevor Gureckis’s brass player, felt that the —the at it today and I’m glad we’re not program- Fixated Nights, another Jerome Foundation —should be on the bottom. ming it at the moment. It’s too hard to play. Emerging Composer commission. Some groups clearly decided on the . But at the time it really kind of set us apart Other aspects of the ABQ’s enormous Our group experimented and found that from other brass groups—Carter’s stature, legacy in the brass world were represented the bass trombone was the right instrument the nature of the piece. It opened up a whole that evening as well. The concert included for us.” And it was in fact two trombonists, bunch of doors.” Giovanni Gabrieli’s Sonata XX for 22 brass Arnold Fromme on tenor and Gil Cohen Within a few years the ABQ had com- players, in a performance showcasing stu- on bass, who organized the American Brass missioned such major composers as Jacob dents in the ABQ’s brass chamber music Quintet in the late 1950s. Their ensemble Druckman, Virgil Thomson, William seminar at Juilliard; Venetian music from first took to the stage—in collaboration with Bolcom, and William Schuman. “Whether the ensemble’s 2005 CD In Gabrieli’s Day; the Renaissance Chorus of New York—on these heavy hitters would have been on and Three Fantasias in Church Modes, by December 11, 1960, at New York’s Kaufmann board without the Carter I don’t know. Thomas Stoltzer (ca. 1475–1526), music that Concert Hall, and had its formal debut the But we were becoming well established as can be found in one of the first American following year at Carnegie Recital Hall (now the group willing to do the real challenging Brass Quintet Editions. Nineteen of these known as Weill Recital Hall). contemporary stuff.” critical editions have been published so far, Right from the beginning the ABQ players As Mase points out, “Endurance is an and two others are in the works. Most are were hungering for new repertoire; and the extremely big issue in a brass quintet. We the work of Raymond Mase, who joined seminal event of ABQ’s early years was its want composers to understand some of the ABQ in 1973 and is the ensemble’s inaugural commission, which went to Charles those limitations up front, because we want unofficial historian. Whittenberg in 1962 for a sum of $1,500. their piece to be as successful as it can be. Circa 1965 While brass have been around at “It was a big risk and a big investment,” says We don’t tell composers what to write. 39 Performing with Billy Childs

We’ll say, ‘You write the piece you want to write; however, we’ve seen other com- posers make certain kinds of errors, and here are some guidelines.’ ” Yet many of 21ST-CENTURY the ABQ’s chamber brass commissions have gone to composers who had not pre- viously assayed the medium—one exam- COMMISSIONS ple being Melinda Wagner, whom the by and for ABQ commissioned shortly before she was awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for THE American brass quintet her Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion. “I’m a pianist and erstwhile 2010 2005 cellist,” says Wagner, “and writing a brass Trevor Gureckis Robert Dennis Fixated Nights Il Ritorno quintet was a new thing for me. I brushed The Three Tenses Huang Ruo 2009 up on the literature, but I did not show Chants and Flourishes David Sampson 2004 them sketches—they just let me go, and I Brass Quintet Shafer Mahoney Brass Quintet No. 1 think the first time we met over the piece William Harbinson was in rehearsal after they’d already 2008 Quintet Steven Sacco worked it up. It’s quite demanding, but I Brass Quintet Gordon Beeferman think they’ve done it something like forty Blue and Gold Music Justin Dello Joio 2001 times—many more performances than I’ve Be Not Afraid: The Isle Is had for any other piece.” Sam Adler 2007 Full of Noises Rojak stresses the need to make sure Two Elements Billy Childs Brass Quintet Daniel Asia GLAST Prelude Nolan Gasser that all composers writing for the ABQ A Sense of Space Robert Maggio 2000 “learn the range of the instruments. And I Brass Quintet Robert Beaser tell them that if they want their piece 2006 Brass Quintet No. 1 Melinda Wagner played by more than just us, don’t write a Cornopean Airs Paul Moravec American Intrada James Wintle second trombone part, just write a bass Entrance David Sampson Velvet and Spice Brian Fennelly voice, and I and my tuba colleagues will Reflecting Light Adam Schoenberg figure out how to play it. There are some Copperwave Joan Tower misguided orchestration books, particu- larly by Piston and Hindemith, that say the range of the bass trombone is almost an octave less than it really is. Even with Joan Tower, I had to ask whether she had used one of those books. She said, ‘Why do you ask?’ and I said, ‘because the lowest note you wrote [in Copperwave] is the C two ledger lines below the bass clef. I wanted to go lower.’ She dropped it another fourth, and I was very happy.” Copperwave makes the ABQ as a whole happy. “If we look at the last ten years,” With Melinda Wagner says Mase, “we certainly have played that piece more than any of the others. We 40 november/december 2010 “If the Copperwave commission had come earlier in my career, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.” —Joan Tower often close recitals with it, because no mat- but ideal forums for the musicians’ teaching and bass-baritone Christòpheren Nomura, ter how difficult the program has been, this talents. (All five also play regularly with with a text based on poetry by Walt Whitman; is a piece that sounds great—we can really New York , and all but Mase and it’s a commission from The Andrew W. sink our teeth into it and nobody’s saying, hornist David Wakefield have faculty posts Mellon Foundation, the ‘I can’t get through this thing!’ You don’t in addition to their Juilliard and Aspen Fund for Music, and the Chamber Music have to have ever heard a brass quintet, or duties. Mase chairs Juilliard’s brass depart- America Endowment Fund. Plog, a veteran even much classical music, to get something ment; Wakefield has served as the school’s trumpeter-turned-composer who now from it. But if you’re familiar with all kinds associate dean for performance activities.) teaches at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, of chamber music, you’ll also get some- For a number of years there was a pattern first met Mase in the early 1970s when the thing and feel that it’s a quality work you’re of three Carnegie recitals a year, says Mase, two were vying for a post at the Boston happy to hear again and again. We can do “but somewhere along the line we decided Symphony . (The job went to it on a show for kids—it’s colorful, has a lot that we’d have this one big New York con- Rolf Smedvig, who went on to become the of activity. Older cert each year at Lincoln Center, and if other orchestra’s principal trumpet. He left the people are happy people came along to hire us in the city, BSO in 1981 to form Empire Brass.) About to hear it. Other fine. But not three a year. ten years ago Plog wrote a piece for the groups are already “One of my colleagues tells me that the ABQ called Mosaics (Brass Quintet No. 2) playing it, and best idea I ever had in my almost forty years on commission from the NEA. it’s a piece they’ll with the quintet is our mini-residencies. It Like many of the university musicians, be able to play was nearly ten years ago that I sat down with Plog turns to the Brass Chamber Music without having the guys and said, ‘You know, we have Database (created by a longtime ally of the to commit to it assets we’re not taking advantage of—our ensemble, trumpeter William Jones) to for six months. reputation as teachers, how we work with look for original works for brass quintet. There’s not much young people. We’re just going out and Plog makes a sharp distinction between In 2008 question in my playing concerts. We could be at a place for serious repertoire and “shlock.” As he sees mind that this two or three days and it would be phenom- it, “You can have great performers, and you piece will endure.” A measure of the ABQ’s enal.’ The mini-residencies were something can have very important performers. Hakan own comfort level with Copperwave is that that a lot of our university colleagues Hardenberger is absolutely the top trumpet as soon as the piece was delivered, they were looked at and said, ‘We want this, it’s right soloist now, but he has also done an “instantly playing it like we’d been playing for our students.’ The beauty of it is that incredible number of premieres; he’s not it for years,” Mase recalls. we can tailor-make them for wherever we only enhanced his career but added to the “It’s interesting that it happened that go. This year I’m sure that ten or fifteen of repertoire. And the American Brass Quintet way,” says Tower, “because I’ve struggled our things will be mini-residencies, and only has done more for the literature than any with brass and had never written for five a few of them straight concerts.” Recent group in the history of brass . An brass instruments before. I started learning support for these mini-residencies has awful lot of brass groups have essentially about those instruments with my Fanfares come from the NEA’s American Masterpieces gone the route of entertainment music. for the Uncommon Woman”—works dating initiative, launched in the summer of 2008. More than any other group, the ABQ has from 1986, 1989, 1991, and 1993—“and In the latest round of grants, the ABQ was stayed true to its values. Not only have if the Copperwave commission had come awarded $20,000 for multi-state perfor- they added to the repertoire, it seems like along earlier in my career, I probably mances and educational events focusing on they just keep getting better.” wouldn’t have been able to do it. Brass is a such composers as Stephen Foster, Trevor very hard medium.” Gureckis, Shafer Mahoney, David Sampson, The ABQ’s longtime residencies at Aspen and Joan Tower. Chester Lane is a New York-based music and Juilliard—40 and 23 years, respectively— And the new American music keeps journalist and senior editor of Symphony, have not only provided optimal conditions coming. Early in 2011 the ABQ expects to official magazine of the League of American for introducing new repertoire to the public, see a score by Anthony Plog for brass quintet Orchestras. 41