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The Ewald Quintet No. 1 for brass has to be among the most widely performed of all brass quintets in our repertoire and certainly is the most popular among 19th century original works for quintet. Victor Ewald (1860-1935) was a civil engineer but also an avid amateur brass player and composer, particularly of brass music. This work was published during his lifetime and most modern editions are fine to use. However, there is one that by way of Public Service Announcement that we should note Horn Matters readers to be careful or at least specifically aware of.
It is the version edited by Robert King and published under the title “Symphony for Brass.” The late Robert King was a euphonium player and what he did was arrange the quintet into a sextet. The euphonium part is similar to the actual tuba part but elements of the actual horn, trombone, and tuba parts are shifted around to create the euphonium part in such a way that it really can’t be performed effectively as a quintet from the sextet version by leaving out the tuba part, the voicing and such will be off.
Although I have never heard it performed as such, as a sextet it would probably sound fine, especially to an audience unfamiliar with the original quintet version. But be clear, the King version is an arrangement and not to be performed with less than six players.
Perhaps a testament to the enduring popularity of this work among brass players the Wikipedia article on Ewald is very nice and gives a great introduction to him and his music. The below is a good piece of background on all of his quintets.
For many years it was wrongly thought that Ewald was the composer of only one quintet, his Op. 5 in B flat minor, because this was the only one published (by Edition Belaïeff in 1912) during his lifetime. The discovery of the other three works was due to the tireless research of André M. Smith, (an eminent musicologist and former bass trombonist at the Metropolitan Opera, New York) who was gifted the manuscripts by Ewald’s son-in-law, Yevgeny Gippius in 1964. A further nine years of investigation was necessary to authenticate the manuscripts, before the pieces were given their first modern performance during the 1974-75 season in a series of concerts by the American Brass Quintet at Carnegie Hall.
A very approximate chronology of the composition of the four quintets runs as follows:
Quintet no. 4 in A flat major (Op. 8 ) – c. 1888
Quintet no. 1 in B flat minor (Op. 5) – c. 1890
Quintet no. 2 in E flat major (Op. 6) – c. 1905
Quintet no. 3 in D flat major (Op. 7) – c. 1912
If you are not familiar with his quintets, do get familiar with them, they are among my favorites in the quintet repertoire.
One final note, this post is not to knock Robert King, he did much to raise the level of brass chamber music. His publications are standard gig music for quintets and work very well. Just avoid the Ewald arrangement!
