This is because the North American Empire Brass Quintet has centred its album on the brass music of Giovanni Gabrieli, one of the first composers to specify instrumentation and volume markings in his music. However, as with most music written around 1600, lack of surviving documentation often makes it impossible to know exactly what the composer originally scored or intended. As such, whenever we assess a recording today we are not merely considering how the artists have interpreted a set piece. We are also passing judgement on whether we like the arrangement they have opted for in the first place, and so two layers of subjectivity are introduced instead of one. This issue is compounded by the fact that the quintet also perform pieces by Gabrieli's contemporaries which were never written for brass and have been adapted for it.

And so for these reasons, I must declare with some caution that the pieces as delivered on this album simply don't do it for me. The first five are all by Gabrieli, and see the Empire Brass Quartet joined by members of the Boston and New York Symphony Orchestras to form two (and frequently three) choirs. The opener, Gabrieli's Canzon Duo Decimi Toni possesses too much of a flaccid, dragging quality for my taste. The tempo is set by the conductor and first choir's trumpet one, Rolf Smedwig, and it feels rather ‘off the boil' throughout. A close listen reveals some full and rounded playing in the horn, trombone and tuba parts, but it is as if they want to race ahead and are prevented from doing so. This is no scar on the brilliance of Smedwig, the quintet's founder and a trumpeter of truly international renown. It is is just that his intentions here fail to strike a chord with his ensemble as much as with me.

Indeed, all of the pieces suffer from this central problem, though to differing degrees. Gabrieli's Canton Septimi Toni No. 2 sees certain brass parts producing a wonderful echoing effect, but lacks sharpness, whilst his Canzon VII suffers less from this latter problem, but only because it involves fewer instruments to start with. Only the Canzon A 12 and Canzon A 12 Echo, which come at the end of the album when Gabrieli is returned to, feel inspiring in a way that I would hope for.

When none of the pieces by other composers were originally intended for brass, there is a sense that their presence is simply due to the need to make up a full album for a brass group. Nevertheless, though some are more successful than others, the best do contain their own interest. Looking at the two English composers represented, Tallis' Veni Redemptor possesses a suitable gravity and nobility of purpose. It is just a shame that Byrd's Non Vos Relinquam that follows lacks the same positive qualities.

Though it is very much a matter of personal taste, for me, The Glory of Gabrieli fails to excite or inspire. Recorded in 1999, and originally released in America in 2002, it all has a rather reactionary ring to it. Anyone with a particular interest in Gabrieli's brass music will probably want to own it still, but for music by Gabrieli alone there are plenty of other recordings to choose from. Indeed, listening to this album immediately made me reach for the Taverner Consort's Giovanni Gabrieli: Canzonas, Sonatas, Motets (EMI, 1991) and the Gabrieli Consort's A Venetian Coronation, 1595 (Virgin, 1990). Both recordings are to my mind more exciting, more stimulating and ultimately more fulfilling.

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