This program of brass music with organ and choir alternates material from two 1970s
Canadian Brass LPs, Joyful Sounds (1973) and Canadian Brass Plus Organ (1977). With a total CD time of just 52:55, the LPs must have been sparse indeed, but Renaissance music with brass was sufficiently novel at the time that no one is likely to have much minded. Nor was the sudden incursion of
Dupré and Karg-Elert, with added brasses, really an issue: the similarities, at the time, were greater than the differences. These performances were classic
Canadian Brass, without the genre-bending characteristics of the group's later recordings. A well-rounded, imposing, homogeneous sound was the goal, and it was achieved. The homogeneity extended to the Festival Singers of Canada and to the organ of Douglas Haas, which blend into the texture rather than providing sharp counterpoints; the Festival Singers, especially, performed frequently with the
Canadian Brass over a long period, and the ensemble work of the group is seamless. If the music of Praetorius and Schütz and Gabrieli ultimately benefits from edgier performances with more of what the composer had in mind, no one should forget that the
Canadian Brass was among the groups that put these composers on the classical charts in the first place.