The Wallace Collection: Sound the Trumpets! : Music: The London-based eight-member ensemble will present an ‘aural feast’ tonight at the Irvine Barclay.

The 19th-Century British essayist Sydney Smith once compared paradise to “eating pates de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.” This commendation of the trumpet’s heavenly sonority also hints at its potential for overindulgence. Even a 90-piece orchestra usually finds that two or three of these bright brass instruments will suffice.

Trumpeter John Wallace, leader of the eight-member trumpet ensemble called the Wallace Collection, is not one to side with moderation, however. And he claims to have history on his side.

“In the late 1500s, kings and courts would keep 20 trumpets players on hand at all times. The Portuguese royal court, for example, boasted 24 resident trumpeters. Aside from their musical duties, they were a symbol of power and wealth,” Wallace explained by phone recently from his Costa Mesa hotel.

The Wallace Collection will perform tonight at 8 p.m. in the Irvine Barclay Theatre, a joint presentation of the Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Laguna Chamber Music Society.

Since the formation of the Wallace Collection in 1986, the London-based ensemble has built a reputation for high musical standards and unhackneyed programming. Although Wallace’s troupe has played at festivals throughout Great Britain and Australia, until its current U.S. tour, which ends tonight in Irvine, American fans had to rely on recordings to appreciate Wallace’s unique approach.

Wallace explained his ensemble’s unconventional name, which sounds more like a traveling art exhibit than a group of musicians.

“They’re my collection of instrumentalists,” he said. “The term ‘collection’ allows me to focus on any combination of brass instruments and to be flexible when I put together a program. If I called my group a brass quintet, then I would be stuck playing music only for brass quintet.”

Wallace conceded that concert music for brass ensemble, regardless of its configuration, is not as rich as, say, the repertory for string quartets and quintets.

“Those string ensembles have it made, but we try to redress the situation,” he said. “We arrange the music Mozart and Beethoven should have written for brass. Usually I take a piece with some trumpet parts, and arrange it for the group.”

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For example, tonight’s program includes an arrangement of Mozart’s Divertimento in C, K. 187. Originally scored for two flutes, five trumpets and percussion, Wallace arranged it for seven trumpets and percussion. (One of the group’s players doubles as a percussionist.)

Lip fatigue is another challenge to trumpet-ensemble performance that Wallace has addressed.

“With eight players, we can alternate the (difficult) lead parts, and I also do a bit of talking as the program progresses. When you’re in shape, the blood comes back to the lips in about two minutes.”

For the tour program, Wallace concocted a narration based on quotations from Mozart’s letters.

“It’s fun to surprise the audience with tidbits about Mozart’s life and personal habits, including the fact that he hated the trumpet. He wrote a trumpet concerto in his youth, but the manuscript was lost. As he matured, he had less and less interest in the trumpet. When he re-scored Handel’s ‘Messiah,’ he gave away the best trumpet solos to the clarinet!”

Unlike such well-known North American quintets as the Canadian Brass and Empire Brass, the Wallace Collection trumpeters play valve-less trumpets as well as modern valved trumpets, which were not invented until the 19th Century. Not only does this versatility give authenticity to the Renaissance and Baroque brass repertory, it also gives the ensemble a broader range of sonorities.

“We bring with us at least 40 different instruments on the tour; we try to make it a real aural feast,” Wallace said.

In addition to his brass group role, Wallace has served as principal trumpet of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra since 1976. But work with the ensemble has not dimmed his enthusiasm for solo performance.

He noted that this year alone he is premiering three new trumpet concertos. In January, he premiered Robert Saxton’s Trumpet Concerto; next month he gives the first performance of a concerto by Dominick Moldoni, and in August he will premiere the Trumpet Concerto by fellow Scot James MacMillan with the Philharmonia under U.S. conductor Leonard Slatkin.

Contemporary music on tonight’s program includes fanfares by Stravinsky, Britten and Tippett as well as American composer Verne Reynolds’ 1957 Music for Five Trumpets.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised how well American audiences have taken to Reynolds’ piece,” Wallace said.

* The Wallace Collection brass ensemble plays music of Stravinsky, Britten, Tippett, Gabrieli, Verne Reynolds and others at 8 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. $11 to $22. (714) 854-4646.