Music review: Christmas in Brass 2017
Music review: Christmas in Brass 2017
12 December 2017
Pasadena Tabernacle Band is one of nine different brass ensembles featured on Christmas in Brass.
Have you got someone in your circle who’d prefer a brass Christmas to a white one?
The CD, Christmas in Brass, may be the simple Christmas card or stocking-filler you’re looking for. The Salvation Army has produced a neat package, which includes space for your greeting and an album perfect for the holidays. It features brass bands and ensembles playing in all 18 tracks – that’s full-on band arrangements as opposed to sing-along, carol-playing. 
It’s a mixed bag of mainly goodies from 13 different composer/arrangers (regrettably, no Australians) played by nine ensembles including five Staff Bands (regrettably, no Australians), a corps band (Pasadena Tabernacle Band) and the trombone group, Spiritual to the ‘Bone’.
Most of the arrangers have looked for freshness and variety, to the lesser-known carols e.g. Pat-a-Pan, Mary Walked Amid the Thorn. So while there is a fair sprinkling of Joy to the World, favourites like Away in a Manger, Once in Royal David’s City and While Shepherds Watched their Flocks rate barely a musical mention.
Most of the pieces are short and vigorous, very few sweet and gentle, and there are a couple of substantial, satisfying brass band works like Marcus Venables’ sonorous, dramatic treatment of the Greensleeves carol which he calls Christ’s Birth.
There are some unexpected ‘carol’ inclusions (Bowen’s The Suppliant Heart and Graham’s Shine as the Light) and the playing and recording standards throughout are variable as one might expect on a compilation disc. Nevertheless, at the price of $5, think about buying a handful to send as Yuletide greeting to your brass-loving friends.
Christmas in Brass is available from Salvation Army Supplies in Melbourne (1800 100 018) or by visiting http://commerce.salvationarmy.org.au/.
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