Movie spectacular
Pure Brass Quintet and friends, recital
The versatility of our young musicians was given yet another airing with the performance given by the newly-formed Pure Brass Quintet together with four other musicians. The only veteran among the latter was Joe "Bibi" Camilleri who played the timpani and together with the other musicians (except for one) is a member of the National Orchestra, courtesy of which the instruments were made available. A glaring shortcoming irked me throughout the performance. It is true that in the printed festival programme some vital information was given.
The least the young lady presenting the concert could do was first of all introduce herself to the audience. She should not have left it to Kevin Abela, leader of the quintet, to introduce Joe Camilleri, Daniel Cauchi (percussion), Karl Matthew Camilleri (drums) and Charlene Farrugia (keyboard) at the end of the evening before a very welcome encore, Hawaii Five-O.
The Pure Brass Quintet is formed of Mr Abela and Reno Cassar (trumpets), Alex Bezzina (flugelhorn), Jesmond Azzopardi (trombone) and Chris Spiteri (tuba). This is a well-knit and well-coordinated bunch if ever there was one! Although limiting themselves to music from sound tracks of well-known films, they produced different effects and variety of style evoked very well the general atmosphere portrayed by these films. Josef Cauchi's filming and editing of clips from these films helped to complete and create the right feeling for the music.
These were indeed many and included for example music from westerns, both of the "genuine" and "spaghetti" genres. The latter could not but be a dose of Ennio Morricone with the theme from A Fistful of Dollars, with "cool" guest trumpeter Sigmund Mifsud, who presumably wrote the arrangements, carrying it off with great accomplishment right to the expected expert finish. Elmer Bernstein's main theme from The Magnificent Seven was the other western tapped for the occasion. Music from a war film, was represented by that from 633 Squadron (Ron Goodwin), while a dose of historic saga came with Gladiator (Hans Zimmer), the latter's music sounded again in the disaster genre with Backdraft. While it would have been almost impossible to ignore Nino Rota's music from The Godfather (mainly the theme Sing Softly), so was it impossible to leave out the spy/secret agent thrillers as with a medley "Essential James Bond Films" with John Barry's music from sound tracks of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever and The Man with the Golden Gun. Other tracks came from the cartoon film The Lion King (Elton John) and the animated film The Incredibles (Michael Giacchino). There was also a foray into a spy thriller spoof, which came with some of Quincy Jones's music for Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.
The going got better and better and the audience reaction increased in intensity and appreciation reaching a peak with Danny Elfman's music from the blockbuster Mission Impossible. At one point the brass players left the stage and there was some very fine virtuoso solo display, taken in turn by percussion, drums and timpani. They almost seemed to whip themselves into a frenzy, but remained very much in control and gradually the brass players returned for a grand finale on the same theme. Or almost, because there was that encore after all. As for arrangements, except for one each by Mr Mifsud, Mr Bezzina and Mr Azzopardi, all the rest were Mr Abela's. Very well done indeed.
The least the young lady presenting the concert could do was first of all introduce herself to the audience. She should not have left it to Kevin Abela, leader of the quintet, to introduce Joe Camilleri, Daniel Cauchi (percussion), Karl Matthew Camilleri (drums) and Charlene Farrugia (keyboard) at the end of the evening before a very welcome encore, Hawaii Five-O.
The Pure Brass Quintet is formed of Mr Abela and Reno Cassar (trumpets), Alex Bezzina (flugelhorn), Jesmond Azzopardi (trombone) and Chris Spiteri (tuba). This is a well-knit and well-coordinated bunch if ever there was one! Although limiting themselves to music from sound tracks of well-known films, they produced different effects and variety of style evoked very well the general atmosphere portrayed by these films. Josef Cauchi's filming and editing of clips from these films helped to complete and create the right feeling for the music.
These were indeed many and included for example music from westerns, both of the "genuine" and "spaghetti" genres. The latter could not but be a dose of Ennio Morricone with the theme from A Fistful of Dollars, with "cool" guest trumpeter Sigmund Mifsud, who presumably wrote the arrangements, carrying it off with great accomplishment right to the expected expert finish. Elmer Bernstein's main theme from The Magnificent Seven was the other western tapped for the occasion. Music from a war film, was represented by that from 633 Squadron (Ron Goodwin), while a dose of historic saga came with Gladiator (Hans Zimmer), the latter's music sounded again in the disaster genre with Backdraft. While it would have been almost impossible to ignore Nino Rota's music from The Godfather (mainly the theme Sing Softly), so was it impossible to leave out the spy/secret agent thrillers as with a medley "Essential James Bond Films" with John Barry's music from sound tracks of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever and The Man with the Golden Gun. Other tracks came from the cartoon film The Lion King (Elton John) and the animated film The Incredibles (Michael Giacchino). There was also a foray into a spy thriller spoof, which came with some of Quincy Jones's music for Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.
The going got better and better and the audience reaction increased in intensity and appreciation reaching a peak with Danny Elfman's music from the blockbuster Mission Impossible. At one point the brass players left the stage and there was some very fine virtuoso solo display, taken in turn by percussion, drums and timpani. They almost seemed to whip themselves into a frenzy, but remained very much in control and gradually the brass players returned for a grand finale on the same theme. Or almost, because there was that encore after all. As for arrangements, except for one each by Mr Mifsud, Mr Bezzina and Mr Azzopardi, all the rest were Mr Abela's. Very well done indeed.