Review

Robert Schumann
Scenes from Childhood Op.15:

Arranged by Keith Terrett

brass quintet

Vancouver, BC, , Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2010
URL: http://www.CherryClassics.com

score and parts

Primary Genre: Brass Ensemble - 5 brass

Schumann wrote these 13 short pieces for piano in 1836, four years before his marriage to Clara. In a letter to her, he said that they express an adult’s memories of childhood, and reflected her comment that he sometimes seemed to her to be like a child. These transcriptions for brass are quite a leap of imaginative faith and they all present some interpretive or technical challenge, beginning with the syncopated triplets for trumpet 2 and horn in the first selection, Of Foreign Lands and Peoples. For each part, some selections are more technically demanding than others. For trombone, the most challenging is probably Almost too serious, which involves mostly 16th notes, some large intervallic leaps, and also calls for mute (unspecified). Trombone range tops out at a1 in this selection; lowest notes are E-flats in Frightening. Trumpet 1 tops out at c3 (concert) in Blind Man’s Buff. Cup mutes are required for all parts in Pleading Child and Child Falling Asleep. All of these pieces call for great sensitivity in performance; if that can be achieved, they will be successful. Keith Terrett was born in London in 1956, and has extensive experience internationally as a trumpet player, conductor, and composer. He is currently teaching in Guernsey (Channel Islands).