The Best of the 5 Browns

ピアノ5台、50本の指が奏でる驚愕のピアノ・スペクタキュラー！
5人姉弟の驚異のクインテット、ザ・ファイヴ・ブラウンズのベスト・アルバム登場！

デビュー・アルバム「ザ・ファイヴ・ブラウンズ」でクラシック界に旋風を巻き起こした、ザ・ファイヴ・ブラウンズのベスト・アルバム。アメリカではビルボード・クラシック・チャートで10週連続第1位を記録したデビュー・アルバム「ザ・ファイヴ・ブラウンズ」、初登場第1位（21週連続第1位）を獲得し、79週も25位以内にチャート・インしたセカンド・アルバム「ラプソディ・イン・ブルー～ノー・バウンダリーズ」、そしてJazzトランペットのクリス・ボッティやディーン・マーチンとのバーチャル・コラボで話題となったサード・アルバム「パリのアメリカ人～ブラウンズ・イン・ブルー」（初登場第1位）という3枚のアルバムから厳選されたトラックばかりです。ブラウン家の5人の姉弟（長女デザレー、次女デオンドラ、長男グレゴリー、三女メロディー＆次男ライアン）は全員がアメリカの名門ジュリアード音楽院でピアノを学び、ピアノ・クインテットを中心にしたザ・ファイヴ・ブラウンズを結成し、全米でのコンサート・ツアー、CDデビュー、メディアへの登場で大きな話題を呼んできました。 ［コメント提供；BMGジャパン］

It's probably a bit soon for a greatest-hits disc by the young Utah crossover group the 5 Browns, which may be why the more generic "favorites" was used in the subtitle here. Nevertheless, this sampling of the group's three discs so far serves as a decent introduction to this rather unusual piano quintet: one with five pianos and five young pianists. You can make all the Osmonds jokes you want, but the fact is that Desirae, Deondra, Gregory, Melody, and Ryan Brown, born between 1979 and 1986 and all students at the Juilliard School, have both the chops and the drive to pull off something really unusual in an intelligent way. The sequence of pieces gives an idea of what happens on the individual albums. The music mostly consists of arrangements, from various pens, of classical standards. The Browns don't play on five pianos all the way through, but break down into smaller groups and solos, reuniting for ceiling-rattling ensembles on the likes of a variation from Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (track 13), which is quite a thrill. The group's 2007 album Browns in Blue features a move in the direction of jazz, which may or may not be a good thing; it is likely to be mostly classical pieces that will stand up to the five-piano concept. But the strength of this group is that the individual players can hold their own. Hear Gregory Brown's rendering of Art Tatum's fearsome Aunt Hagar's Blues, or of the bonus track, Aaron Jay Kernis' Superstar Etude, a work perfectly suited to the youthful enthusiasm of these musicians, with a concluding surprise that it would be a shame to elucidate here. If this quintet takes the trouble to cart five pianos to your town, go and see 'em. If not, this collection is the next-best thing.

5 Stars: Favorites from the 5 Browns collects 16 classical pop cuts from the five ivory-tapping siblings, including public domain classics like "Flight of the Bumble Bee," "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini/18th Variation," "Rhapsody in Blue," "Clair de Lune," and "Scenes from West Side Story." All of the pieces are capably performed, but with only three albums under their belt, it hardly seems enough to warrant a "greatest-hits" collection. ~ James Christopher Monger