CD: Music for Brass Septet - 5

Music for Brass Septet - 5 
Septura

Fauré - Ravel - Debussy

Naxos: www.naxos.com/www.septura.org

Having recently launched its ‘Kleptomania’ concert series, Septura has just released its fifth album on the Naxos label, this time focusing on music from France at the outset of the 20th Century - one of the most ground-breaking times and places in music history.

The ensemble’s canon of felicitous transcriptions and arrangements is already extremely impressive, but with this latest release, Simon Cox and Matthew Knight have successfully reimagined music by three composers central to defining France’s unique musical direction, as Romanticism gave way to Modernism: Fauré, Debussy and Ravel.
The disc begins with music by the youngest of the composers, Maurice Ravel. His Ma Mère l’Oye is given a characterful performance, befitting the programmatic nature of the music. The opening movement, The Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty, gently acclimatises the listener to the group’s sound world, with each movement that follows introducing a different colour or style. Ravel’s Trois Chansons allows the septet to demonstrate energetic virtuosity through the concluding Ronde, whilst the ensemble’s warmth of sound can be appreciated in Ravel’s popular, Pavane pour une infant défunte.

The music of Claude Debussy closes the release with a quite stunning representation
of six of the composer’s 24 Préludes for solo piano. The choices are inspired, affording Septura the opportunity to explore the myriads of colour this music allows, without sacrificing any pianistic detail from the original. The playing is simply superb, with the innate artistry evident in Prélude VIII (The girl with the flaxen hair) a particular highlight.

However, it is the mélodies of Ravel’s
former teacher, Gabriel Fauré, centrally featured on this release, which truly captures the imagination. The lyricism from the featured soloists is quite remarkable, with Matthew Gee’s sublime performance of Après un
rêve worth the price of the CD alone.

Yet again, another extraordinary release from Septura, and one that will surely be in contention come BBW’s next round of recording awards.

DAVID CHILDS

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