Velvet Brown (tuba)
Barbara York (1949-2020)
How Beautiful (2008)
Roger Kellaway (b.1939)
Dr Martin Luther King In Memoriam (1984)
John D. Stevens (b.1951)
Monument (2006)
Meyer Kupferman (1926-2003)
Sound Objects 1-3 (1978)
Drew Bonner (b. 1991)
Naptown (2014)
Ron Stabinsky (piano), Amy Gilreath trumpet)
rec. 2019-2023, Cleveland State University, USA
Crystal Records CD696 [58]

The tuba is still something of the Cinderella of the orchestral world, and I say that as a player of some fifty years. It takes an imaginative composer to see beyond the Tubby the Tuba type repertoire and fortunately there are now many such composers. In the seventy years since Vaughan Williams wrote his masterful Tuba Concerto, the technical abilities of tuba players and the repertoire for the instrument have both expanded exponentially. The solo repertoire covers every combination of instruments.  There are numerous concertos with orchestra or band and a myriad works for the ‘standard’ combination of tuba and piano.  The repertoire has expanded but also, meanwhile, whereas the tuba was once the province of men only, women have made their mark as tuba players and Velvet Brown, the soloist here, is one of the finest.

The Canadian composer Barbara York wrote many works for low brass including a popular tuba concerto in 2004.  Her idiom is neo-Romantic and this work is based on a quote from Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” It was commissioned in memory of a baby boy who died soon after his birth and has the feeling of an elegy with touches of African American spirituals about it. It is beautifully written for the soloist, the material being placed in the instrument’s medium high lyrical range, though not so high that it stops sounding like a tuba. Ms Brown gives a heartfelt performance of it in memory of her own son who also died soon after his birth.

Roger Kellaway has had a distinguished career writing music in many genres and styles.  There are TV and film scores including Barbra Streisand’s version of a ‘Star is Born’, a ballet for Balanchine and orchestrations and original works for everyone from Duke Ellington and Quincy Jones to Yo-Yo Ma. The three movements of ‘Dr Martin Luther King In Memoriam’ are infused with the spirit of the blues, jazz and gospel. If one can imagine Mahalia Jackson as a tuba player, the second movement would be that.

John D. Stevens is himself a tuba player and had a long career as professor of that instrument at the University of Wisconsin. ‘Monument’ was commissioned in 2006 by the famous player Roger Bobo in memory of Tommy Johnson a longtime colleague and a distinguished tuba player in his own right.  Originally for tuba and strings, it is heard here with piano accompaniment.  As one may expect, it coming from a tuba player, it is perfectly and respectfully written for the instrument. All the material is beautifully placed in the appropriate register.  It is very much in a mid-twentieth century harmonic idiom with the piano proving a chorale like accompaniment over which the soloist sings a heartfelt lament full of dignity and real beauty.

Meyer Kupferman was one of the modernist American composers who came to prominence in the 60s. Eschewing any traditional titles and forms, this work for tuba, trumpet and piano is typical of the period. There is much use of extended techniques and muted sounds and in the third movement the players have choices to make in performance from six fragments. It is a surprisingly approachable work ; the muted sounds from the brass give it a jazzy feeling.  It is clearly fearsomely difficult for all the players, but they make light of these difficulties and make it sound like music.

Drew Bonner’s ‘Naptown’, which closes the disc, was commissioned by Ms. Brown for herself. Named after her hometown Annapolis in Maryland, it is tailor-made for her many and varied skills. In its ten minutes it manages to pay homage to the classical repertoire, has a big bluesy section and finishes with a riotous funky coda, written to bring the house down.

The tuba is not an easy instrument to capture in the studio; the high notes can often sound thin and the low ones like growling.  Here, however, the engineers have perfectly balanced the players and the sound is of demonstration class.

Paul RW Jackson