The London Brass Virtuosi, David Honeyball - Music For Brass And Percussion (1987)

By coincidence I was writing a couple of weeks ago about the reluctance of brass (and military) bands to adjust their instrumentation to that of the music they are playing (rather than the other way about). Now, here is a brass ensemble which will and does exactly that; with the result that the record can include, along with the British composers, also those who are American, Norwegian, Czech, and German. As it happens, not all the music thus freed from captivity is among the world's best, though readers who know the Copland and the Janacek from their orchestral appearances (the Sokol fanfare begins the Janacek Sinfonietta) can make up their own minds about that. Rather less familiar is the innocent Grieg Funeral March (used, years after its composition, at his own funeral) and the somewhat overblown Strauss Festmusik. After this the Vaughan Williams Henry V Overture does indeed seem light and airy; and if gloom descends for Britten's pretty well unknown 1936 Russian Funeral (his own name for it, the sleeve-note tells us, was ''War and Death''), then the Holst again, of course, lets the light in.
As it happens, the Holst is given a very gentle performance, with agreeable effect save possibly in the March, where the easy tempo tends to emphasize the (perhaps appropriately!) rather pedestrian rhythmic quality of the movement. (Earlier, in the Nocturne, real pedestrians would have been upset by a hiccough in the pulse which sounds like a bad tape join.) Elsewhere than in the Holst, performances are not undully gentle at all, but matched splendidly to the style of the music; as indeed is the playing itself, and (again!) the careful choice of instrumentation to show their excellent playing at its best.
The recording is pretty well to match, with a suitable stereo separation for the two antiphonal brass groups of the Strauss; and the sleeve-note is a most agreeably informative one. A most interestingly varied record.'