MUSIC / CHRIS PASLES : A Lot of Brass Pays Off for Canadian Ensemble : Quintet: A mix of straight and comic playing made a reputation for the Toronto group. It will perform tonight at the Arts Center.

For nearly two decades, the Canadian Brass--sometimes called the Marx Brothers of brass ensembles--has been wooing audiences with a mix of straight and comic playing. No one could be more surprised by the group’s longevity than its tuba player, Charles Daellenbach, who, along with trombonist Eugene Watts, is one of its two remaining founding members.

The Toronto-based Brass--which will come to the Orange County Performing Arts Center tonight for the second time, courtesy of the Orange County Philharmonic Society--has had to carve its own niche in the classical music world, Daellenbach said.

“Because of our eagerness to have a career as brass players at the very beginning, we had to look at the situation as it was,” he said. “And the situation as it was, was (that) there was no opening, no hole, no ready-made slot for a brass group.”

So the quintet began experimenting--making entrances playing Dixieland down the aisles, talking and joking from the stage, spoofing “Carmen” and “Swan Lake,” offering such wacko arrangements as “Flight of the Bumblebee” for tuba--along with straight playing of Bach and Gabrieli.

Daellenbach now downplays the hilarity. “We’re not comedians,” he said. “We are not attempting to be comedians. We are simply displaying our personalities on stage. People find one or two of us funny at times. But we are still motivated by the kind of music we’re playing.

“We felt that time between pieces of music could be deadly time,” he continued. “We thought we might as well fill up time with what we found interesting, which might give the audience more understanding or interest. . . . But we’ve always been musicians first. We put music first. It was our classical training in the music of Bach, etc., that brought us to music. And our concerts display this music.”

Indeed, the ensemble members do boast heavy classical credits. Daellenbach is a graduate of the Eastman School. Watts was a principal trombonist with the Toronto Symphony. Fred Mills was a principal trumpet of the Houston Symphony. Ronald Romm joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a trumpeter when he was 18. And David Ohanian, the group’s newest member, played horn for 11 years with the Boston Symphony.

With that background, Daellenbach said, the group knows to give each kind of music an approach “that’s appropriate. If it’s Bach or music of the European classical tradition, there is certainly a kind of a performance that’s appropriate, and we give it that approach. If it’s Dixieland, we give it, again, an appropriate performance--which is looser and freer, very American. We’re into that--if you want to call it--’performance practice.’

“We never spoof the music,” he stressed. “We’re still playing the Bach Fugue the way the most esoteric examiner would want to hear it performed. We always give the music the appropriate performance. . . . Our audience is with us. They know when to have fun.”

After so many years, the Brass relies on audience enthusiasm to keep itself fresh. “When an audience is with a performer, there is nothing like it in the world,” he said. “The energy you derive from that is addictive.”

Other groups have picked up on the success of the Brass. Daellenbach estimated that “upwards of 15, 18” other brass quintets in North America alone are able to make a living “at various levels” by playing brass instruments.

“And not just in America,” he added. “There is a German Brass, an English group, a Swedish group that’s outstanding. It’s a universal, worldwide thing happening. . . . There seems to be room for a lot of brass activity.”

Why? “People like the sound,” he said simply.

“We’re both honored and amazed. . . . We’d like to take credit for all of this. We’ve been told that what we’re doing is creating a wake like a boat, tip of the wedge. If someone comes to our concerts and is excited, the next time they see there is a brass concert, they may feel like checking it out. Which makes a nice opportunity for other groups.”

All the groups face a similar problem with repertory, however: Much of what is available is from the Renaissance and Baroque periods--or post-1950. The rest has to be transcriptions.

“There is quite a bit of music that has been written for brass quintet since the 1950s,” Daellenbach said. “But as a whole body of repertory, it’s too lightweight to create a career based on that music.

“A string quartet or trio can make a career saying they will play only Romantic music or only Mozart or only contemporary music. But a brass quintet can’t say, ‘We’ll only play music written since 1950.’ There is enough music, but not enough quality music. That’s why we encourage commissions. We’ve been very active in commissioning works. . . . We’ve made and do make a tremendous investment in music.”

Such commissions include works by Canadian composer Malcolm Forsyth, 1978-Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Colgrass and the formidable Lukas Foss, among others.

“We don’t have our Brahms yet, as far as a contemporary composer is concerned,” Daellenbach said. “We’re constantly on the lookout for the great new composition. Fortunately to make a career, we didn’t have to wait for that.”

Daellenbach said it was a transcription, made in 1975 by Watts, of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor that pushed the group into the big time. “That work more than any other showed our versatility, musically and technically,” he said. “Approaching a giant work like that, and playing it for a general audience, and achieving the interest and success that it did, was very important for us.”

Important enough for the ensemble, over time, to have become virtually a mainstream favorite. It has almost 20 albums out on the Vanguard, CBC, RCA Red Seal and CBS Masterworks labels. The group just signed a contract with Philips Classics records. Its first release--a Beethoven album--is scheduled for spring. Ten members of the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony will join with the Brass in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

“We’re very fortunate,” Daellenbach said. “The great brass players in our century are in the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony. For them to pitch in, the impossible became the possible.”

Beethoven’s works have been arranged for the group by Arthur Frackenpoul, a longtime Brass associate who arranged Bach’s “Art of the Fugue” and Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” for them.

The Brass now gives about 100 concerts a year, in addition to TV appearances. About half the year is spent in Toronto, rehearsing and recording, and half on the road--a grueling schedule that has taken its toll. The original horn player dropped out after 13 years. But Daellenbach presses on.

“Work really hard now and rest later,” he said. “It’s too exciting” to stop.

Before the Center appearance, the Brass will make its Las Vegas debut in a flashy hotel casino. Daellenbach is almost speechless at the idea.

“A brass quintet going to a concert hall in Las Vegas to play Bach, Samuel Scheidt, along with our ballet (the ‘Swan Lake’ spoof)--it is amazing,” he said. “We are amazed.”

The Canadian Brass plays a holiday concert tonight at 8 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, sponsored by the Orange County Philharmonic Society. Tickets: $10 to $30. Information: (714) 642-8232.