CLASSICAL MUSIC : Brassy 5 Blend In in Baroque

Thanks to the grandiloquence of a Pittsburgh critic, the Empire Brass quintet likes to market itself as “the foremost of American brass ensembles.” But, according to Empire Brass tubist J. Samuel Pilafian, the Boston-based quintet is better known in Japan than in North America.

“We’re in Japan on tour twice a year,” Pilafian said, “and have appeared on national television there a lot. We’ve played on their version of the ‘Tonight Show,’ which means that we’ve been exposed there in a way that has not happened in the U.S.A.”

Although the Empire Brass’s appearance on American television has been limited to a guest spot on “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” an episode that coincidentally was rerun earlier this week, the ensemble has built its solid reputation with more than 20 recordings and by playing an average of 100 concerts a year. Pilafian and first trumpet Rolf Smedvig are the only two founding members of Empire Brass who still with the group, which is now in its 17th season.

Monday night at Sherwood Auditorium, the quintet performed with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra under the baton of music director Donald Barra. The idea of appearing in concert with an orchestra, a recent wrinkle in the group’s marketing strategy, occurred to the group when they saw the Pleyel Woodwind Quartet perform Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante” for solo winds and orchestra, according to Pilafian.

This La Jolla performance demonstrated that using a modern brass quintet with a chamber orchestra works best in the Baroque repertory, where arrangements of Handel and Henry Purcell become ersatz concerti grossi. In Handel’s “Water Music” Suite, the ensemble’s crisp articulation and bright but well-focused timbre vividly embodied the apt ceremonial splendor of the period. Dazzling duets in high coloratura territory between trumpeters Smedvig and Jeffrey Curnow in the suite from Purcell’s opera “The Fairy Queen” validated the group’s virtuoso credentials.

The mating of chamber orchestra and brass quintet was decidely less successful, however, in a movement from Debussy’s “Suite Bergamasque” and Ravel’s “Habanera,” where the wailing trumpet solos came dangerously close to burlesquing a mediocre 1930s swing band. More idiomatic was a setting of Aaron Copland’s bouncy, angular variations on the “Simple Gifts” tune from “Appalachian Spring,” as well as three splashy movements from Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass.”

The only other North American brass quintet with the Empire’s visibility is the Canadian Brass, noted for its ability to play, say, an arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” ballet complete with parodied choreography. Pilafian and his colleagues have gone to great lengths to develop a contrasting profile.

“We don’t do the physical stuff they do--we don’t joke around. Our signature is our sound. Theirs is formidable showmanship, which is not to say they’re not good brass players,” Pilafian said. “But we hang our hat on our sound.”

The quintet’s French horn player, Martin Hackleman, played with the Canadian Brass before joining Pilafian and company. In a deal that resembled a trade between two major league baseball teams, Hackleman traded places with Empire’s former French horn player, David O’Hanian, who went over to the Canadian Brass.

“Dave had always been a fan of the Canadian Brass style,” Pilafian said. “Marty decided to leave the Canadians because we play 50% more music in the course of an evening’s concert.”

In an informal talk before Monday’s performance, Hackleman gave his succinct reason for deserting the Canadian Brass. “I just got tired of dancing for a living,” he quipped.

In the fall of 1987, Empire Brass made a memorable nine-city tour of the Soviet Union. Although they came with a hefty reputation, by the time they reached Moscow for their final concert, they had achieved the popularity usually reserved for rock bands in the West. An overflow crowd of 1,000 disappointed ticket-seekers threatened to storm the concert hall.

“The police were called in to hold back the crowd,” Pilafian said. “After some hasty negotiations, since the weather was good, it was agreed that the windows and doors would remain open so the people could listen to the concert outside the hall.”

Empire Brass was also a big hit on Soviet television, although Pilafian was quick to point out how it differed from its Western counterpart:

“On our television show in Leningrad, we played live to 125 million people. Of course, there were only two choices for the viewers: speeches or music.”

Their Russian sojourn included teaching and coaching sessions, which endeared the Empire players to their Soviet students. By the time Empire was ready to leave, they had given away piles of music and all the spare instrument parts they had with them.

“We left everything there that wasn’t tied down. They’re really hungry for equipment,” said Pilafian. He vowed that, on their next trip to the Soviet Union, which is now in final planning stages, he would take a couple of extra mouthpieces, Western artifacts even more valued by Russian brass players than designer jeans.

“My wife is a violist in a string quartet, and, when they toured Romania, they gave away the strings off their instruments before leaving the country,” he said.

Unlike the string quartet or woodwind quintet, the brass quintet is a fairly recent phenomenon.

“The pioneering group was the New York Brass Quintet, which formed 30 years ago,” Pilafian said. “Following World War II, there were many good brass players around, but not enough jobs.” Although the New York Brass Quintet is no longer together, according to Pilafian, these are still the pioneering days of the brass quintet.

Because the brass quintet is such a historical newcomer, there is a notable paucity of repertory for this configuration of instruments.

“Our quintet was formed for a performance of contemporary music, and at first a lot of what we played was new music,” Pilafian said.

Now Pilafian culls the instrumental repertory, looking for music to adapt and arrange for brass quintet, which is then published under the Empire Brass Music Series name. Although arranging is his forte, he does not consider himself a composer. Those aspirations were dashed when he encountered another tuba player and composer, Brent Dutton, now a member of the San Diego State University music faculty.

“We grew up around the same time,” Pilafian said. “When I heard a piece he wrote 20 years ago in Cleveland, ‘Suite for Seven Tubas,’ I decided that I had better be an arranger.”