With his composition SWEET BRASS BELLS, the Austrian composer Martin Scharnagl presents a creative fantasy about the well-known German Christmas carol "Sweeter the bells never sound". The piece begins with a solemn opening that dresses the thematic material in a harmoniously colorful robe. The first stanza is presented in a chamber-music manner by a brass quartet before the second stanza appears in a sonorous tutti. Over a broad pedal point we reach a first musical climax in the form of a fermat...