Septura.  Lakeside, Nottingham. 12 December 2024.

4✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff

“Fine playing but such a big sound needs more space to breathe.”

If you want to hear a seven-piece brass ensemble at the top of their game, you need look no further than Septura.  They are all distinguished players in their own right, principals of top UK orchestras such as the Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the London Symphony and the CBSO.  Put such artists together and you get astonishing amounts of sonic energy, precision and virtuosity.

If you want to listen to small-ensemble music in an intimate space with perfect acoustics, you need look no further than Lakeside’s Djanogly Recital Hall.  It’s not just that you can hear a proverbial pin drop in that space, you can tell its exact dimensions and who manufactured it (possibly…).  Yes, the sound really is that clear and detailed.

You may have guessed where this is leading: put seven brass players in that sort of hall and you run the risk of creating an uncomfortable volume of sound in the louder passages.  For me (and I suspect for others too) it was the quieter pieces which worked best.

Throughout the concert the unflagging energy of the players was always impressive, as was the clarity and razor-sharp precision of their ensemble.  The pieces by Schütz, Bach, Praetorius and Brahms in the first half had transparent textures as well as some delightful antiphonal effects with trumpets and trombones passing ideas back and forth.  The arrangement of Humperdinck’s Overture to Hänsel and Gretel skilfully captured the fairytale innocence of the original, the brass instruments adding their own distinctive colours to the familiar melodies.

In the concert’s second half actress Tanya Myers was the narrator in a retelling of the Nutcracker story, interspersed with Septura’s playing of all the best-known numbers from Tchaikovsky’s ballet score.  The narration was so full of magic and wonder it’s a pity there weren’t more children in the audience to enjoy it.  Who needs ballet dancers when you have someone like Tanya Myers to fill your imagination with pictures of toy soldiers, malevolent mice, sugar plum fairies and mouth-watering sweets strutting their stuff?  Septura played with as much variety as their instruments can muster, with frequent use of mutes creating a surprising range of sonic colour. 

However, no matter how ingenious the arrangement, it remains true that Tchaikovsky wrote his wonderful tunes with specific orchestral instruments in mind – and a brass ensemble just can’t manage the full range by themselves.  The ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ just has to be played on the celesta: muted trumpets simply don’t have the sparkle or the other-worldly, tiptoeing delicacy.

By the time the concert was over (and there was a delightful Silent Night encore) listeners’ ears needed a rest almost as much as the lips and lungs of the players.  Almost everything Septura played at Lakeside features amongst the several CDs they have made.  Their playing is consistently excellent… but perhaps best savoured in shorter bursts and at lower volumes.

Septura, with Tanya Myers, narrator