Hello, today in class we are listening to a piece by Alexander Alyabiev called Quintet in Eb. This piece is for standard Brass quintet. One interesting fact about the piece is that it is one of the first works composed for Brass Quintet, dating back to 1847. The composer Alyabiev is Russian and served in the Russian army during the napoleonic wars from 1812-1823 at a very young age, so he didn't compose this piece till he was much older at age 61.
For todays game I was thinking about the composer and his tie to Russia, I picked a game that although it is different timelines, it is the same geographical location. Russia and Soviet Russia. I picked Axis and Allies. It is a World War II game game where you pick between being on either the Axis which contains Germany, Soviet Union (Russia) and Japan, or you can be the Allies that consist of USA and UK. Each turn you can build either soldiers, tanks, planes or ships and you then move across the world map and attack other cities until you have world domination. It is a very long game, that takes multiple hours, and can be anywhere from 2 to 5 players. If you love history and war, you would love this game. While you play this game or just read the rules and find it too overwhelming, turn on Alexander Alyabiev's Quintet in Eb, I know you will enjoy it.
Something I noticed in the video is the unusual instrumentation of the ensemble; two trumpets, one trombone, and TWO horns. Definitely not something you normally see, and I wouldn't anticipate it being a personnel issue since this is played by Russian military band members.
ReplyDeleteI've played many hours-long board games in my life, including Axis and Allies. Strategy games for the win. We played for several hours before ultimately deciding to end the game on a peace agreement. Although with how passionately we were arguing over that, you'd think there were real life consequences!