Customer Reviews

Pittsburgh Symphony Brass: The Spirit of Christmas

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

 

 

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is considered to be one of the finest orchestras in the United States, and their renowned brass section contributes to its characteristic tight, warm sound. The Pittsburgh Symphony Brass contains members of the PSO, including trumpet wielders George Vosburgh and Neal Berntsen, who provided the arrangements for this wonderful CD. Completing the sextet are William Caballero (horn), Peter Sullivan and Murray Crewe (trombones) and Eric Bubacz (tuba).

This, their second Christmas recording, is their finest thus far. "A Christmas Concert", their other Christmas CD, plays it straight with good performances of mostly traditional arrangements. "Spirit of Christmas" adds timpani (Timothy Adams) and pipe organ (Richard Webster) to many pieces, as well as mezzo soprano Tami Fire, who joins the players to sing Marvin Hamlisch's touching "Take Me to Christmas Past." The result of the additional orchestration is a more lush and varied sound; it makes for a more interesting experience to hear these larger orchestrations interspersed among those featuring the brass alone.
The final piece, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is a particularly beautiful reading by George Vosburgh, playing solo on the Flugelhorn.

The new arrangements are superb and appropriate to the subject matter, exuding majesty without becoming bombastic. They also serve to spotlight the virtuosity and power of the PSO brass.

This is a work of brilliance that will give you chills; I give it my highest recommendation.

In my quest to add even more brass Christmas music to my library, I picked up this CD. Overall the disc is just OK...nothing too great, nothing too bad. Some of the tracks are very well played with great balance and intonation. A few of the tracks suffer from some over-playing with too much emphasis on fortissimo playing. That might be personal preference, but it does not have the warm, rich brass holiday sound I prefer. (I am a huge fan of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Chicago Symphony brass CDs). A couple other tracks have some out of tune playing, particularly on piccolo trumpet. It takes away from what could have been a well done and polished CD. "Hark the Herald" and "O Come.." use timpani and organ and are interesting arrangements. I just wish the mix would have favored the organ more, which often plays the melody.

If you want definitive Christmas brass playing, this is unfortunately not your CD. But, it is worth getting if you are like me and need as much brass as possible. Just skip the less favorable tracks.

I bought this item so I would have Christmas music to listen to while in Iraq. I LOVED IT! Now, I listen to it all through the holidays and can actually play it low at work since there isn't any obnoxious singing.