London Brass visiting Berlin: brass fun

Festive wind music fills the chamber music hall on Monday evening when London Brass invites you to the Christmas concert. On their tour, the ensemble, consisting of brass players from the London orchestra, also makes a stop in Berlin. The instruments, which shine as if freshly cleaned, glitter like the decorations on the Christmas tree, which are (still) missing in the Philharmonie. The trumpeters bring along a whole hodgepodge of instruments and mutes and change instruments between and within the pieces. The program ranges from Vivaldi’s “Winter” to the final Christmas carol medley.

“We believe that London has the most beautiful Christmas carols,” announces the artistic director and first trumpeter of the ensemble Andrew Crowley in his moderation. With these words – rehearsed in German – he immediately stimulates the imagination of the audience. After all, what do you think of when you think of an English Christmas? Songs like “We wish you a merry christmas” or the “Coventry Carol” shouldn’t be missing. And they can be found quickly between works of classical music literature on the program flyer. The only thing that causes confusion is the lack of consistency in the order in the first half of the concert.

Sparkling virtuosity

There is a lot of laughter in the hall about the English humor, but the invitation to sing along is more difficult to implement – most of them just want to enjoy the music. In the – often self-written – arrangements, London Brass distance themselves far from the traditional Christmas melodies, instead the wind instruments shine in their virtuoso playing. Leaning back casually, they sit in a semicircle on the stage and play as if it were domestic chamber music.

Their origins in large orchestras are clearly evident in the musicians. No passage seems too fast or too high for her. They dynamically escape the everyday orchestral life and can finally live out the full sound of the wind instruments without having to consider soft strings.

The ten musicians keep what the concert announcement promises: It’s an evening with brilliant wind instruments and Christmas melodies. The enthusiastically applauding audience certainly deserved an encore.

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