Five Brass Quintets: Brass Quintet Book

Moving through these five pieces is like a guided tour of beloved classical moments reimagined for brass. You experience the baroque elegance of Corelli's theme, the mischievous wit of Borodin's scherzo, the earthy charm of Bartók's folk dance, the ceremonial grandeur of Handel's march, and the youthful energy of Khachaturian's narrative piece. The writing feels natural for brass, not transposed awkwardly from keyboard or string sources.

Brass quintets at the middle school through early high school level who want to explore classical and Romantic repertoire without getting bogged down in technical difficulty. This collection works equally well for festival preparation, concert programming, or skill-building rehearsals where ensemble balance and blend matter more than virtuosity.

• Treat the tuba part as the foundation of the quintet's sound. This voice carries harmonic weight, so lock the tuba player's tempo and tone with the trombonist before rehearsing with trumpets and horn.
• Balance the two trumpet parts carefully; the upper voice naturally projects, so have your first trumpet listen actively to blend with the second trumpet's dynamic level rather than dominating.
• In the Theme from Concerto Grosso, shape phrases with breath points that honor the original Corelli idiom. Even at Grade 1, the music benefits from gentle swells rather than flat dynamic lines.
• Record a rehearsal and listen for ensemble articulation. Brass quintets reveal sloppy tonguing immediately, so establish a shared articulation style (crisp versus legato, short versus sustained) before the first full run-through.

Program one or two pieces from this collection as a standalone brass quintet feature on a mixed ensemble concert, or use individual selections to strengthen technical and musical skills throughout the year as your group's abilities develop. The range of difficulty allows you to feature your most polished arrangement early in the program (perhaps the Handel march) and save a more challenging piece (the Scherzo) for later when players are warmed up and confident.

• Balancing five independent lines while maintaining harmonic cohesion
• Classical phrase shaping and baroque articulation conventions
• Melodic independence for upper voices against sustained harmonic support
• Intonation sensitivity in small ensemble settings
• Reading transposed parts (trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba at concert pitch coordination)