The Five Browns (Desirae, Deondora,
Gregory, Melody and Ryan) present here
their unique and rather distinctive
début disc. This American quintet
of sibling pianists, made up of three
sisters and two brothers, are described
on their website (www.the5browns.com)
as ‘young, beautiful, handsome, likeable,
dazzlingly talented and passionate about
the music they play’, and each of these
numerous attributes comes across in
one way or another. Their collective
vision is to bring classical music to
a wider audience, and, from the general
appearance of this disc, more specifically
to a younger audience.
The first thing about
it that is so refreshing is the way
the five go about doing this. All too
often we see the more inexperienced
listener being blatantly patronised
in an unsuccessful attempt to lure them
towards classical music; there is no
hint of that here. They have given us
a varied and committed showcase recital
and some compelling reasons to listen
further.
The most obviously
interesting of the eleven tracks are
those that contain the Five Browns all
playing simultaneously on five pianos.
There are four of these tracks, Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Flight of the Bumble Bee, scenes
from Bernstein’s West Side Story,
Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
and In the Hall of the Mountain King
from Grieg’s Peer Gynt. What
is most immediately striking about the
performance of these pieces is the seriously
impressive ensemble of this group. The
booklet notes tell us that they memorised
the music so they could concentrate
only on each other, which is clearly
evident in the final result. The arrangements
used here (by Jeffrey Shumway and Kendell
Durelle Briggs) are expertly conceived
and executed and demonstrate some intense
virtuosity on the part of the Browns.
The works chosen in this arrangement
are also eminently suitable for the
treatment.
The balance between
works for five, two and solo pianos
is about right – any more five-piano
music could quickly become tiresome.
The other works give each of the Brown
siblings (who are, incidentally, all
either graduates or students at New
York’s Juilliard School) an opportunity
to display their individual talents
as soloists. Gregory, Ryan and Melody
play two solo pieces each, while Desirae
and Deondra, who are a regular piano
duo, chose to play Ravel’s climactic
La Valse (poème choréographique),
the largest piece on the disc. Each
of the Browns clearly has his or her
own qualities, but there are also many
similarities in style and technique
with no one sibling standing out as
less able than another.
All of the interpretations
are convincing, with each of them clearly
having ample confidence in their own
abilities. An extraordinary amount of
maturity is found alongside the obvious
youthful exuberance and vitality, the
oldest of the five being 25 and the
youngest only 19. However, they have
a distance to go before they reach real
musical maturity, and the playing is
not always as subtle and considered
as it no doubt will be in the future.
As a result of this, the disc constantly
demands the listener’s attention. There
isn’t a great deal of quiet playing,
and some of the quieter sections could
possibly have been approached in a softer
and more tempered manner to produce
a better balanced effect.
The quality of the
recording is excellent and there is
a much-needed depth and range to the
piano sound. Very short silences between
the tracks leave little time to absorb
the music that has gone before the next
piece begins. The booklet notes are
also rather scant in furnishing information
about the music and why the Browns chose
this repertoire. In place of that there
is a rather unnecessary and lengthy
list of acknowledgements.
These are only minor
faults in a disc that I would wholly
recommend. I look forward to hearing
much more from this group in the future.
Adam Binks
The Five Browns: Desirae, Deondra, Gregory,
Melody, Ryan (pianos) 
