Review

Elizabeth Raum
Quintet for Brass:
2 B-flat trumpets, F horn, trombone, tuba

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Publisher:
Date of Publication: 1980 / 2020
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Score and parts.

Primary Genre: Brass Ensemble - 5 brass

Elizabeth Raum’s Quintet for Brass was written in 1980, now reissued by Cherry Classics Music. This 15-minute work comes in four movements and uses standard brass quintet instrumentation. Though no extended techniques are required, the piece demands full instrumental ranges, stylistic fluency, and features independent parts with frequent exposed lines. Parts and score use modern engraving with clear, legible notation. The piece is available for purchase as a PDF download, mailed physical copy, or both. All five parts require straight mutes.

A prolific composer, Raum has written four operas, over 80 chamber pieces, 18 vocal works, an oratorio, several ballets, concerti and major orchestral works. She enjoys a reputation as “one of Canada’s most accessible composers.” In Raum’s own words, “this quintet is based on common musical forms. Preludes have opened many a musical work from Baroque to the present. Then follows Scherzo and Blues, a light-hearted bonbon moving into a lazy blues. Next is pure Baroque, starting with a Passacaglia followed by a Fugue based on the Passacaglia progression. Finally, the Rondo, in a major key, light-hearted and canonic, gives a feeling of the evolution of musical form.”

Ensembles short on recital time, but wishing to program this work, could consider playing just one or two movements. Though conceived as a complete, four-movement work, each movement ends with a strong cadence and can function alone, or in contrasting pairs.