Customer Reviews

A Brass & Organ Christmas / Fenstermaker, Bay Brass, Krehbiel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

11/30/2011 update - new CDs are available for $20 from the Grace Cathedral Gift Shop (San Francisco) - online at[...]. Click the Music tab.
Recorded in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, this is a really spectacular CD featuring a ton of great music and many familiar classics. Huge sound, flawless performances by The Bay Brass and organist John Fenstermaker. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys Christmas/holiday music. The acoustics in Grace Cathedral add a unique and very rich dimension to the sound.

The Bay Brass has been around for nearly 10 years. The group is composed of the best brass players in the San Franciso Bay Area. This album represents some great playing on all levels. Most of the music is traditional holiday music with great brass/organ arrangements. It was recorded at the Grace Cathedral where the acoustics are tremendous for brass and organ. I give this album 5 stars, as the playing and music combination is the best.

Brass and Organ Christmas/Bay Brass

"If you're looking for festive Christmas music by brass and organ, you won't find a better recording than this one. The arrangements are lovely and unusual, the performances loving. While I enjoy the whole disc, I am especially taken by Elgar Howarth's haunting look at Greensleeves, Anthony DiLorenzo's spectacular settings of "Joy to the World" and "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing", Jonathan Ring's touching arrangement of "Silent Night" (which begins and ends with conductor A. David Krehbiel and horn player Robert Ward on alphorns), David Baldwin's setting of the Hallelujah Chorus and Ralph Carmichael's colorful arrangement of "Twelve Days of Christmas."

Staffed by members of the San Francisco Symphony and other important area orchestras, Bay Brass is a truly wonderful brass ensemble with a full-bodied sound and no rough edges. The recording was made in Grace Cathedral with John Fenstermaker, who plays a magnificent Aeolian-Skinner organ with 123 ranks and a smaller 19th-century hand-pumped one. Considering the acoustics of such a large space, the recorded sound is excellent - the group is heard in fine detail, and the lengthy sound delay is never obtrusive and is often magical."

-Kilpatrick

This is a superb brass ensemble. I really enjoy Christmas CDs, and quite a few of the ones I've owned are brass Christmas CDs. I had not heard the Bay Brass before hearing this recording, but I really must say that their precision, timing, power and "attack" truly rivals the legendary Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble. I also think that they surpass the PJBE's own Christmas recordings in many ways. One person mentioned that the organ was not as well-recorded on this disc, and at times it was not easily heard. For me, however, this is not as great a flaw. The real star here is this brass ensemble, which is absolutely first class. Sometimes organ/brass discs have an overpowering organ, and on this disc, the Bay Brass plays with such astonishing skill, that I do not miss hearing the organ accompaniment, which is there, but very much in background. If you are an organ fan, I could understand this may not be the disc for you, but if you love the sound of brass with some organ & percussion accompaniment, this will be exactly your cup-of-tea. There are just enough of the more well-known selections on this disc to satisfy many, along with a few lessor-known pieces. Hark the Herald Angels Sing has all of the excitement and precision one could wish for, in a very imaginative arrangement. Greensleeves is performed in an arrangement originally written by the before-mentioned Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble. Again, I must confess I actually prefer THIS slower version to the version so masterfully done by the Phillip Jones Ensemble, and I mean this as the highest possible compliment. There is an earth-shaking Gabrielli Canzon here, where the organ takes the antiphonal, or echo, parts. And in one of the most creative & unusual arrangements of Silent Night I've yet heard, the brass choir begins playing in a very mysterious way as an echoing melody at first, followed by the organ. The melody moves on to a medley of Away in a Manger, before returning to the Silent Night theme. The Hallelujah Chorus is arranged here for brass, percussion & organ to great effect, and the organ is definately powerful on that piece, as well as on Bach's Christmas Oratorio as well. The clarity of the brass section is nothing sort of amazing. As a real brass ensemble fan, I am eargerly awaiting more recordings by the Bay Brass after hearing this cd. Absolutely first-class.

If you purchase this CD with the hope of hearing a top-notch brass choir and magnificent and large pipe organ playing a varied program of Christmas music in a splendid venue, you may be disappointed when you discover that with one notable exception, the great organ of Grace Cathedral is all but inaudible for the most part. In part, I think this is due to the location of microphones during the recording, since the brass sound quite close to the microphones, while the organ, when heard, seems to be quite a distance away from the microphones and/or brass. My guess is that for whatever reason, the arrangements have not been written to showcase the organ or even give it an equal place on the program. Even in the one selection which features the organ in dialogue with the brass, the sound of the organ is so distant that it is easily overpowered by the brass choir. The small portative organ used for three of the selections has, for the most part, a more audible presence than the great cathedral organ could ever hope to have in this recording.

The music on this CD is outstanding, and the performance of The Bay Brass is impeccable. Now, if only we could hear what the organ and organist John Fenstermaker were playing, this CD would be complete.

The quality of the engineering as well as the performances themselves is outstanding. Excellent arrangements and consistent quality of sound in this reverbrant setting was a thrill to hear. This is one of the best recordings I have heard of organ and brass together. Smooth and majestic, with nice variety of tone color and dynamics and well-defined balances. The wide stereophonic image is breath-taking. Highly recommended!

If you enjoy the sound of large symphonic brass ensemble with pipe organ, you'll like what you hear on this album. The venue is San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, a richly reverberant environment that's ideal for music like this. Excellent sonics showcase a superb job by the audio engineers. The recording is clear and distinct, with good presence and stereo imaging.

A. David Krehbiel conducts the Bay Brass, organist John Fenstermaker, and four guest artists in fifteen magnificent arrangements for brass and organ. In addition, the opening track briefly features the Grace Cathedral carillon, and track 13 is an organ solo.

I had not heard the Bay Brass before I listened to this album. In my opinion, they compare favorably with other virtuoso symphonic brass ensembles, like the Philip Jones, Summit, and Millar brass ensembles.

The Bay Brass's standard instrumentation for this album seems to be four trumpets, four horns, three tenor trombones, one bass trombone, and tuba. Flugelhorns, euphoniums, and even alphorns can be heard on some tracks. (The players are all professionals from orchestras in the San Francisco area.) Four guest musicians assist: one trumpeter and 3 percussionists. Two of Grace Cathedral's four organs were used for this recording.

The selections are mostly traditional, from a variety of time periods and styles. Following are a few of my favorites: Heinrich Schutz's "Psalm VIII" is weighty and glorious; try reading the Biblical text as you listen for an added dimension of enjoyment. Douglas Haislip's colorful arrangement of "Christmas Day (Choral Fantasy on Old Carols)" does credit to the original composer, Gustav Holst, himself a master orchestrator. The verve and precision of Bizet's "March of the Kings (Farandole)" is a delight, especially as heard in the trombones. All of the tracks are worth listening to; there are no duds on this CD.

I have loved Christmas music for brass since I first heard "A Festival of Carols in Brass" by the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble on vinyl 24 years ago (now on CD: CBS MK7033). The Bay Brass's "A Brass & Organ Christmas" is a worthy successor, in the tradition of great Christmas brass recordings. I highly recommend it.