Up until recently, I had known only about one brass sextet by Oskar Böhme, who was born in Germany, studied in Leipzig, and worked in St. Petersburg (and exiled to Orenburg under Stalin’s purge in 1936). Here’s a video recording of members of the Karajan Academy performing this absolutely wonderful work.

There is another notable brass sextet by Philip Glass from 1966. Here is a nice recording from the Third Coast Brass performing the last movement of this work.

At the recent Historic Brass Society conference, there was a wonderful presentation by musicians in the Swedish Cavalry Band called the Prins Carl Sextet. They played traditional Swedish brass music on restored (or reproduced) Swedish-style cornets and other instruments. Their sound was wonderful.

The Sigtuna Brass Sextet

I don’t have access to their video, but I did find another Swedish traditional brass sextet on the Internet–the Sigtuna Brass Sextet. They have some lovely audio recordings that you can hear on this page. You might wonder why there is a clarinet playing with the group, and you would be wrong. It is the distinctive sound of the traditional E-flat cornet.