Music Reviews : Mercenary Drumbeat Accompanies Predictable Empire Brass

Having set the standards for brass quintet playing in this country, the Empire Brass has apparently traded its musical curiosity for marketing acumen. Sunday evening, the ever-polished quintet opened the San Diego Community Concert Assn.’s season at Symphony Hall with a program of tuneful arrangements.

No longer content to play Baroque canzonas, neoclassical sonatas and atonal contemporary essays--music expressly written for brass quintet--Empire Brass has plundered the hit tunes of orchestra and piano repertory and packaged them for popular consumption.

If the audience failed to get Empire’s message, ever-smiling quintet leader Rolf Smedvig reminded his listeners several times that the group’s latest recordings were on sale in the lobby. Yes, folks, the very tunes you are hearing live on stage can be yours--step right up!

Some of these arrangements, notably Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles” and Prokofiev’s “Wedding Dance and Troika” from “Lieutenant Kije,” made compelling musical sense, capitalizing on the group’s brilliant sound, precise ensemble and generally solid intonation. Other arrangements either failed to capture the composer’s idiom, e.g. a halting, thin-textured arrangement of Ravel’s “Pavane Pour une Infante deFunte,” or fell into ridiculous caricature, e.g. Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5,” where the group shamelessly milked the grand pauses and blasted the main theme with sophomoric indulgence.

Oddly, the single original brass work played was Michael Tilson Thomas’ “Street Song,” a recently completed commission from the Empire Brass. On first hearing, the work’s meandering, lyrical themes joined by chordal blocks in close harmony made a pleasing effect. On a more challenging program, it would provide a welcome contrast.

Of the trademark set of Duke Ellington tunes with which Empire Brass closed its program, trombonist Scott Hartmann’s solos in “Caravan” made the jazz classic an exceptionally stylish journey. Tubist J. Samuel Pilafian traversed the fleet, syncopated bass line of “Take the A Train” with a finesse that any string bass player might rightly envy. Smedvig, however, did not have one of his better nights Sunday. He sounded fatigued from the outset, and in the Ravel he even dropped one of his solos in mid-phrase. Martin Hackleman’s French horn sound was not particularly alluring, although he sustained long melodic flights with aplomb. Trumpeter Jeffrey Curnow, the newest member of the group, played with unfailing security and uncanny focus. When he masters the patented Smedvig smile, he will be ready to start his own quintet.