Heron Brass present a diverse early-afternoon recital of music spanning multiple eras and styles including three original works for brass quintet.

The programme begins in the Baroque era with Bach’s “Little Fugue” in G Minor, originally a work for organ but made famous in this arrangement by legendary ensemble Canadian Brass, before continuing with a new, original work by renowned horn player and composer, Richard Bissill. The group are especially pleased to be performing this piece as former students of the Guildhall School, where Bissill is a professor.

Anthony Plog’s “Four Sketches” is next, another original work for brass quintet. Driving and dissonant, save for a lyrical third movement, the piece takes advantage of the wide-ranging timbral capabilities of each instrument. Following this is Peter Maxwell Davies’ arrangement of “Peccantum me quotidie” by controversial renaissance composer Gesualdo, a work of wonderfully dissonant sacred music originally written for five voices.

Joseph Horovitz’s “Music Hall Suite” follows in a much lighter tone, inspired by the burlesque, music hall, circus, and cabaret music so popular at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries, before the concert concludes with an arrangement of Stanford’s beautiful partsong, “The Blue Bird”.