The evening's journey began with J.S. Bach from the 1700s, and ended with Chris Hazell from the late 20th century, passing through jazz, impressionism, church chorales, musical drama, chamber music, counterpoint, homophony and a few other quick stops along the way.

Somewhat ironically, the journey's high point came with "Don Giovanni's Journey to Hell," a piece by Jan Koetsier that interwove themes from Mozart's opera. Koetsier's abbreviated tale featured a Don Giovanni played by Saltzman on tuba, three wronged ladies, all by Butin on French horn, and the avenging Commendatore by Decker on trombone.

Saltzman proved to be a commanding, articulate and expressive Don Giovanni, combining stellar tone and technique. Butin presented sympathetic ladies, and as impressive as Decker's noble Commendatore was, as he dueled Don Giovanni and died to a falling glissando, he made an even more impressive ghost.

Saltzman warned the audience to listen for that striking moment when the Commendatore's ghost drags the unrepentant Don Giovanni out of life: "You will hear our journey from high 'A' all the way down to hell."

Tresemble also presented several arrangements for brass ensemble, including a prelude and fugue by J.S. Bach, an "Ave Maria" by Bruckner, four movements from Debussy's French Suite, and Hoagy Charmichael's hugely popular "Stardust."

Butin imbued the sophisticated melody of "Stardust" with tender nostalgia, his soft-jazz tone recalling bygone days, as the rest provided back-up, big-band style.

For a few minutes, the days of crooners and radio lived once more.

The least successful of the arrangements was, surprisingly, Bach's prelude and fugue. The music was played well enough, but the quality of a performance lies not so much in the ratios of wrong to right notes, but in how well the meaning of those notes is conveyed. On Monday, there seemed to be too much playing of notes and not enough shaping of lines, relishing of dissonances, and decision-making about focal points, interrelationships and nuances of articulation.

Tresemble's strength lay in contemporary works, the bulk of the program. Particularly delightful performances included Anthony Plog's bright, rhythmically compelling Music for Brass Octet and Christ Hazell's jazzy "Three Brass Cats," depicting the stray cats that adopted him: lushly chorded, inscrutable "Mr. Jums"; the late-n-lazy swing-beat cat "Black Sam" of smoky jazz clubs; and "Borage," the cool-jazz, on-the-move cat-about-town.