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The Humboldt Bay Brass Band was featured on the Jan. 6, 2008 edition of Go directly to the Jan. 6, 2008 podcast featuring the Humboldt Bay Brass Band. Fall 2007 Concert Selections: Get your copy of the HBBB CD! “PAGEANTRY of BRASS” (2005)
27 pieces British-style Brass Band Select linked titles to listen to excerpts: Featuring : Four recordings of music
of Humboldt County : Single copy total is $12 (no extra S/H) Check payable to: HSU Music Dept. INQUIRIES / CHECKS MAY BE MAILED TO: ..... BIG, BAD, and WOODLESS ! Review by Kenneth Brungess - - - - - AUG 13, 2005: If you love bands, then you’ll love “Pageantry of Brass,” a new recording by maestro Gil Cline & cie. The Humboldt Bay Brass Band is part of the much-heralded brass ensemble “experience” at Humboldt State University located on California’s beautiful northern coast. The band’s instrumentation is typical of Great Britain and New Zealand aggregations, boasting soprano e-flat cornets, b-flat cornets, e-flat tenor horns, trombones, baritone horns and euphonia, e-flat tubas, double b-flat tubas, organ [on the Gabrieli], and various percussion. The CD was recorded [without “sweetening” the EQ] in the university’s acoustically excellent Fulkerson Recital Hall. Everything on this recording is beautifully interpreted, and the “bottom-up” balance, enhanced by the conical construction of the instruments, results in a goose bump-producing sound! [As opposed to the top-heavy, strident tone of many of our American bands.] Probably the best example of this on the album is the [Giovanni] Gabrieli Nunc Dimittis which was written for the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice in 1597. In the liner notes we are asked to listen for a Da Vinci ‘Devine Proportion’ event lasting .618 in duration at 2:44 into the piece. [Quite a phenomenon!] Also from the high renaissance are the selections from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo [circa 1608, and around the time of the convening of the Florentine Camerata]. Gil Cline is a world-class virtuoso performer on the natural baroque trumpet [clarino] and the medieval-renaissance cornetto. As a result, the interpretation of this selection is right-on! There is also judicious use of the [realized] percussion parts and instrumental ornamentation. Another tour de force for the band is the well-known March Egyptien [Grand March] by Verdi which originally called for offstage brass. Following are three pieces associated with Humboldt County: Sequoia Carnival March, Humboldt March, and Eureka March. All three are energetically and expertly performed, with the “center piece” being the liveliest of the three. [An American march tempo as opposed to the slower, more ceremonial late 19th century German/European style of the outer two pieces.] Pageantry is the finale and comes from “across the pond.” It
was a contest
piece for the 1937 Championships, and is in three movements: fast, slow,
fast. Dr. Cline, in his liner notes, reports that each competing band
played the same work. The judges were enclosed in a screened fabric box
[so
as not to be “visually influenced”] and were expected to
pick a winner after
hearing the same selection all day! The piece is quite advanced
harmonically for its time, and includes asymmetrical meters in 5/4 and
7/4. = = = = = = = “ TOUR de BRASS ” (2003) Brass Consort von Humboldt Renaissance music Music from 1502 to 2002 featuring the sounds of : ..... CRAZY ! ..... * Reviewed in the Historic Brass Society Journal 2003 (worldwide circulation)
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