Brass Quintet mock up

[DaveTubaKing]

I've given the VSL brass players a huge workout in the world premier performance of Derek Bourgeois 2nd Brass Quintet which you can hear here This is a big work for brass. In fact it was originally written for the Philip Jones Brass Quintet in the 70's who considered it too difficult even for them. It was subsequently rescored as a concerto for Brass Quintet and Brass Band (and subsequently orchestra) in which incarnations it has had several performances but this is as I say the WP of the original version.

The VSL brass cope very well although the lack of straight mutes and horn mute was a bit frustrating. I've used about 24+ patches for each player and mixed and matched the Bb and C trumpets using what patches sounded best. there is an ultra low pedal section towards the end which uses the wagner tuba, the contrabass trombone and the contrabass tuba.

The mix as ever will be my downfall.

Any comments are better than no comments which is of course a comment in itself!

You can read a bit more about it on my WS if you so wish.

[William]

I intensely dislike this piece of music (the composition).   However your mockup is a lot of work and sounds like the right samples are being used to represent this.  But the mix sounds totally dry.  Why don't you use reverb?  The sound of the quintet has to be placed within a space.  As it is now, it is just samples sitting out in the air, naked.

[Albino]

Coming from a brass background, I basically enjoyed the piece. The mix, however, is incredibly dry and lifeless. Also, I'm not sure if it is too long, but that may well be due to the dry mix making it sound too dull and not keeping the listener's attention. It would be good to hear it again with the reverb problem fixed.

[DaveTubaKing]

Thats odd about the reverb. It is a chamber work which I've placed in a small hall. - here's the MIR settings i've used. Admittedly I've lowered the dry-wet offset but I've read all to often that you shouldn't drown a piece in reverb. Of course I could turn up the dry/wet or move the players into a bigger hall. I suppose it's a matter of taste.

Is there any particular quintet from the repertoire you are very fond of William? Perhaps the Victor Ewald symphony?

[William]

The level of dry is sufficiently high to sound like there is no reverb.  

To put my ranting  a bit more reasonably,  though there are a lot of great quintets for brass of course, the quintet seems to isolate the instruments whereas the larger brass choir allows the sonority to blend.   I wish there were more larger brass ensembles though the quintet is more practical to organize.

Similarly, though of course there are hundreds of great string quartets including the greatest works of the best composers, on the level of pure instrumentation I always felt that the makeup of the standard string quartet is bad: two violins overbalance one viola and reduce it to chordal accompaniment and the cello is forced to become a bass instrument which is not its best tenor sound.  Contrast that to what happens when you adopt the quartet consisting of  piano, one violin, viola, cello - the violin timbre is now balanced, the viola and cello can play more characteristically solo lines, and the piano adds its own soloistic or accompaniment power to the mix.  Or another example - the Schubert Trout Quintet makeup, which has only one violin, and the double bass added.  That is a fantastic combination in sonority.