THE CANADIAN Brass played at Orchestra Hall on Sunday afternoon under a climatic disadvantage that they brought south with them, but the warmth of their playing and their humor inspired enough people to brave the 20-below-zero weather to fill more than half the house.
Virtuosi to a man, the five members of the Canadian Brass rarely neglect precision and musical polish, but they are clearly more concerned with putting on a good show, which they certainly did. As a result, they revealed much about brass technique, but even more about a none-too-subtle side of the Canadian sense of humor.
With characteristic absurdity, they began the concert with their first encore, in case they didn`t have time afterward: a bluesy rendition of the hymn ”Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” played while sauntering in in single file from the back of the hall. From here, Charles Daellenbach, the group`s tuba player, explained the program with a running monologue whose tongue-in-cheek musicological earnestness would have done credit to that American musical humorist Peter Schikele.
THE CONCERT`S musical quality? Often quite dazzling despite all the buffoonery, and their surprisingly gentle, subdued rendering of excerpts from Vivaldi`s ”Four Seasons” demonstrated that they were not interested only in laughs and virtuosity. Playing almost entirely from memory, they were equally at home in blues, jazz and the classics.
Their arrangement of ”Bach`s most famous composition,” the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, was a showpiece for a number of technically impressive feats, including Daellenbach`s very difficult solo.
