Salt and lemon juice is magic for copper. I don't know of anything like that for brass though.

This page seems to have some good ideas. I hope that you can get by with a wipe on cleanup with little or no elbow or shoulder grease.

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/brass

When I got out of college I had a cool brass bed frame. The side rails were loose so when ever I was rockin' the bed with a sweetie it would announce to the world what we were doing. The frame was a real 'screamer' but it did keep rhythm with us I wish that I still had that bed frame now.