The return of the Chestnut Five

TOM PURDOM

We're all familiar with the saxophone, but did you know Adolphe Sax also invented a family of marching band instruments called saxhorns? The family included several horns that pointed backward, over the musician's shoulders, so the people marching behind them could hear the music.

When the Chestnut Brass played Stephen Foster melodies on saxhorns at its 30th Anniversary concert, the three musicians playing backward horns naturally performed with their backs to the audience. And took their bows facing that way, too.

It was a good example of the kind of informative hi-jinks the Chestnut Brass has bestowed on audiences for three decades. When I first started reviewing music 20 years ago, the Brass's Center City concert series was one of my most enjoyable discoveries. They're first-class musicians; their concerts always feature interesting material; and the patter that runs through their programs would provoke the envy of professional comedians.

Five hundred years of music

The Philadelphia series ended ten years ago, when trumpeter Bruce Barrie and horn player Marian Hesse left our city. The group's tuba player, Jay Krush, still participates actively in the Philadelphia music scene, and the players themselves still tour and burn CDs. When they finish their 30th anniversary tour, they'll head for Korea, a country they've already visited several times.

Their 30th anniversary return, complete with a cake-and-champagne reception, was a happy reprise of those glorious days of old. The program covered 500 years of music, from the Renaissance to contemporary pieces they had commissioned, played on the instruments of each period. In the first half they opened with a lively Irving Berlin, hopped to a score by contemporary composer Lois Vierk, followed that with two Renaissance pieces played on Renaissance brasses, and finished with a major orchestral work, the overture to The Barber of Seville, in a charming arrangement that makes all of Rossini's effects stand out.

Two notable contributions

The Chestnut Brass has made two especially noteworthy contributions to our musical life. They've commissioned several new works for brass quintet, and they've resurrected the special sound of 19th-Century brass instruments.

The very modern piece by Lois Vierk in the first half created a sharp, immediate contrast with Irving Berlin's Steppin' Out With My Baby. Vierk's Sunbow starts out big, features a flock of siren-like glissandos, and ends with a calm dominated by the rumble of the tuba.

The second half opened with a brief Peter Schickele charmer called Valentine's Day and a Jennifer Higdon fanfare quintet that was another winner. The Higdon was originally composed for organ, and it has so much going on that it must have kept the organist's hands and feet flying.

Krzywicki's tribute to Persichetti

The most impressive commission on the program was Jan Krzywicki's Variations on a Theme of Persichetti. Krzywicki wrote the piece as a memorial to his teacher, Vincent Persichetti, and his nine movements turn a personal loss into a universal expression of the emotions associated with an experience we all undergo sooner or later.

The "period instrument" movement has taught us to appreciate the special qualities of Renaissance and Baroque instruments, but musical instruments continued to evolve throughout the 19th Century. The Chestnut Brass play Renaissance and Baroque music on replicas, like most period instrument groups, but they perform 19th-Century American music on original instruments they've collected over the years. Older instruments usually produce softer, more intimate sounds than their descendants, and 19th-Century brasses conform to that rule.

The image of a rural town square

From 1830 to 1850, Americans played band music on brasses that included a family of "keyed bugles"- music makers that were essentially bugles fitted with keys. The second half included two pieces from that period, Henry Clay's Gallop and General Taylor's Gallop, and you couldn't hear the gentler sound of the instruments without seeing images of rural town squares and lakeside dance pavilions. You could hear some of that same quality in the somewhat louder music produced by the aforementioned saxhorns, which the quintet employed to play Beautiful Dreamer and a medley of eight other Stephen Foster tunes.

The musical half of the anniversary celebration ended with modern instruments belting out Irving Berlin's Blue Skies and a Jay Krush arrangement of George Gershwin's I've Got Rhythm that gave each instrument a final turn in the spotlight. Then we all retired to the second floor of the Ethical Society and raised our glasses to a saga that began when five student musicians started wooing audiences on the Chestnut Street Transitway in 1977.