Septura: Music for Brass Septet, Vol. 7: Gershwin & Copland
Naxos

Septura's Music for Brass Septet, Vol. 7 is so terrific it immediately makes one want to hear all the others in the series. If the performances on the earlier chapters are as magnificent as the London-based group's treatments of Gershwin (1898–1937) and Copland (1900–1990) on its latest, all seven volumes are clearly worth tracking down. Whereas earlier ones featured Russian, English, and French composers, this latest collection of brass chamber music focuses on two of America's greatest twentieth-century figures.

The primary works on the release are Gershwin's An American in Paris (1928) and Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite (1944), with 3 Preludes (1926) by the former and the latter's Quiet City (1939) rounding out the programme. In truth, no more than the first two would have been needed to make the release essential listening, but the inclusion of the others makes it all the more rewarding. While no one would mistake one composer's work for the other's, the music Gershwin and Copland created exudes an undeniably American quality, with the former merging jazz and classical idioms like it's the most natural thing in the world and the latter building on the country's folk foundations in his works. Under the expert guidance of artistic directors Simon Cox (Bb trumpet) and Matthew Knight (trombone), Septura both conveys the jaunty exuberance of a visitor's tour through the French capital and captures the tender ache that has made Appalachian Spring so beloved.

Consistent with the idea of a tourist excitedly seeing Paris for the first time, Gershwin's opening piece begins with two ‘strolling' themes that suggest the joy of discovery and anticipation of adventure. Programmatic content arises in the suggestion of taxi noises (something to which the horns lend themselves exceptionally well), but it's more the overall tone that conveys the visitor's impressions. That mood gradually gives way, of course, to bluesy melancholia (and a fabulous trumpet solo) symbolizing the American's longing for home, but nostalgia doesn't last long: our American casts the blues aside to revel anew in the thrill of Parisian life, leading to a finale that sees the blues theme and celebratory spirit converge. Though the recording presents the piece in eight indexed sections, it plays without interruption as a magnificent nineteen-minute performance.

Septura's joined by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's Patrick Flanaghan on cor anglais for Quiet City, whose understated tone stands in stark contrast to the boisterousness of the opener. Quiet City was originally created as incidental music for a 1939 play, but when it flopped Copland refashioned it into a ten-minute evocation of New York at night. Like Gershwin, it takes but seconds to identify Copland's music through his signature handling of harmony, melody, and compositional form. In this stirring tone poem, trumpet and cor anglais masterfully convey the stillness of the city during its wee hours, when the streets are deserted and peacefulness settles in.

The jazz inflections that emerge during the blues sequence in An American in Paris re-surface in 3 Preludes, with the first's swing intensified by the incorporation of punchy Brazilian rhythms. Described by its creator as “a sort of blues lullaby,” the second is very much that but also a splendid illustration of Gershwin's melodic style. Rhythmic thrust gives the third prelude a dynamic drive that, coupled with its Spanish flavour, makes it a fitting bookend to the opener.

After Copland wrote the music for Appalachian Spring for a Martha Graham-choreographed ballet, he followed the ballet's premiere with a recasting of its music as a suite for thirteen instruments. While programmatic details are provided by the composer, Copland's setting rewards as strongly when attended to on non-programmatic grounds and when the brass instruments so effectively capture the painterly textures of the work and the warmth and luminosity of the tranquil episodes. Of course the folk-influenced work also includes animated sections whose playfulness Septura realizes as splendidly. The penultimate movement, “Doppio movimento: Variations on a Shaker Hymn ‘Simple Gifts',” is especially fascinating for its Petrouchka-like overlapping of themes, yet as captivating as the work's uptempo sections are, it's the ensemble's rendering of its plaintive hymn-related content that's most stirring. The solemn chorale and lyrical melodies that appear in “Moderato: Coda,” for example, are among the work's most powerful moments.

July 2021