Origin of the Species — Revisited — 4barsrest

This welcome re-release (the unique was recorded in 1999) is a well timed reminder of the sweetness and craftsmanship of mid Nineteenth-century brass quintet chamber music. 

Composer Jean-Francois Bellon (1795-1869) wrote twelve brass quintets between 1848 and 1850 – a time when the musical in addition to technical potential of the primary chromatic brass devices was beginning to flourish and discovering an outlet with virtuoso performers, particularly within the coronary heart of Paris.

And as immediately, showmanship was a key attraction to a public eager to be entertained within the in style ‘Concert events Musards’ of Parisian life.

Pistol and canon

It was mentioned that entrepreneurs corresponding to African-American keyed bugle participant Francis Johnson mixed novelty and sensation to equal impact: If a performer fired a pistol, the subsequent day a rival employed a canon.   

Bellon’s quintets are gems of formal, ingenious model – utilising tonality and texture as a lot as sheer virtuosity of their construction and compass; primary sonata in type however adventurous in each different facet.  There’s bombast and bluff, balletic power and effervescent dashes of impetuosity – all very Gallic and acrobatic but in addition touching and honest.   

You’ll be able to picture the gamers sending the impressionable younger girls of Parisian society into scorching flushes of excitable musical hysteria with the odd musical wink of a properly positioned trill or the lachrymose tenderness of a tellingly turned phrase.

He treats the keyed bugle, ophicleide, slide trombone, cornet and valve/hand stopped horn as if writing for strings to supply a warmly hued palette and shocking facile flexibility.  

Outstanding ability

As with John Wallace, John Miller, Paul Gardham, Simon Gunton and Anthony George on this launch, the likes of Jean-Jacques Edmond Dubois, Louis-Alfred Boulcourt, Donatien Urbin, Edouard Dantonnet and Charles-Philippe Alfred Lahou will need to have been gamers of exceptional ability and intuitiveness – every of the compositions demanding nuance, magnificence and vivacity each individually in addition to collectively.

It is pleasant stuff – understandably just a little wonky in intonation in locations given the devices themselves, however so what. 

You’ll be able to picture the gamers sending the impressionable younger girls of Parisian society into scorching flushes of excitable musical hysteria with the odd musical wink of a properly positioned trill or the lachrymose tenderness of a tellingly turned phrase.

Even in these austere instances it places a uncommon smile of satisfaction on the face.

Iwan Fox

To buy: https://thewallacecollection.world/portfolio/twcfr2020001-osr-cd/

Play checklist:

1. Quintette No. 1 in Eb main (Jean-Francois Bellon)

i. Allegro

ii. Minuetto

iii. Andante cantabile

iv. Allegretto

2. Quintette No. 2 in Bb main (Jean-Francois Bellon)

i. Allegro risoluto

ii. Minuetto

iii. Andante cantabile

iv. Allegro scherzando

3. Quintette No. 3 in G minor (Jean-Francois Bellon)

i. Introduzione

ii. Minuetto

iii. Romance

iv. Rondo

4. Quintette No. 12 in F minor (Jean-Francois Bellon)

i. Moderato

ii. Minuetto

iii. Adagio ma sostenuto