“Early music” in the Navy Band

U.S. Navy Band Brass Quartet in 2005

In 2002, I reenlisted in the Navy. Around the same time, I did an arrangement of a Gabrieli Canzona for the Navy Band Brass Quartet that we did on a Navy Band Chamber Music CD. That arrangement included all of the kinds of ornaments and musical phrasing ideas that I had been learning as a cornetto player–and put into notation for modern brass players.

I think this arrangement was successful, but I don’t think it was “historically informed performance practice.” It was a hybrid of HIP ideas mixed with a modern brass approach–and it worked, I think. We had a lot of discussions in rehearsal about how to articulate and phrase, so in that sense, I think we learned a little more about Gabrieli and our own possibilities.

Here is that recording with John Schroeder and me on trumpets, Joe Dollard on euphonium and Andrew Oppenheim on tuba.

No tags for this post.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.