Although there are several successful and highly productive specialist
brass band CD labels, releases of band discs on mainstream classical
labels have been relatively rare animals in recent years. One
possible exception that could be cited is Chandos, which for some
time enjoyed a close relationship with amongst others, the Black
Dyke Band. Sadly the Chandos commitment to bands has waned of
late, although more recently “Dyke” has ventured into classical
territory once again with the release of “Symphonic Brass” on
Naxos, a disc of weighty classical arrangements that appears to
have been something of a success story from a sales point of view.
Discs
dedicated wholly to contemporary music have been rarer still,
although one early precedent was set way back in 1976, with
the release of “Grimethorpe Special” on Decca Headline. Masterminded
by Elgar Howarth and containing such daring content as Harrison
Birtwistle’s Grimethorpe Aria, Ragtimes and Habaneras
by Hans Werner Henze and Howarth’s own scoring of Takemitsu’s
Garden Rain originally written for orchestral brass,
the brass band world reeled under the shock of music that was
largely considered to have no place in what was and in many
ways still is, an insular and inward looking movement.
Unfortunately,
thirty two years on from Grimethorpe Special, new music that
takes many in banding outside of the confines of their comfort
zones still has a tendency to stir negative reactions; one reason
why a small number of much needed protagonists, Elgar Howarth
amongst them, continue to promote the work of a gratifyingly
growing number of contemporary and young composers that have
added to the brass band repertoire in recent years.
One
such protagonist and the man behind this new CD by the Foden’s
Richardson Band is producer, conductor, arranger and all round
brass band enthusiast Paul Hindmarsh. For many years now he
has been closely involved in the annual Festival of Brass held
at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, a three
day January extravaganza of top class bands, playing a diverse
and often daring range of repertoire skilfully woven into what
are invariably highly absorbing programmes.
Repertoire
is one of Hindmarsh’s abiding enthusiasms and he has had a significant
part to play in most of the music on this disc, whether it be
in the form of commissioner, arranger or editor.
In
the case of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Flowers of the Forest:
Reflections on a Scottish Folk Song, it is his editing
skills that have been employed, the scoring being subtly altered
to suit the standard twenty five piece brass band rather than
the larger forces of the National Youth Brass Band of Great
Britain, for whom the work was written. In common with George
Benjamin’s Altitude, Flowers of the Forest is
Richard Rodney Bennett’s only work for brass band and again
in common with the Benjamin, the work is not quite as “new”
as the title of the disc might imply, dating to 1989 (remarkably
Altitude was written over thirty years ago when Benjamin
was just seventeen).
Despite
Rodney Bennett’s stature as a composer, Flowers of the Forest
remains little known even to those in the brass band world,
yet here proves itself to be a gem that justly deserves to be
drawn to wider attention. The folk song in question is believed
to date to 1513 and is contemporary with the Battle of Flodden,
the carnage of the battle field being reflected in the central
variants of the piece before the music subsides to a touching
close in an atmosphere of reflective mourning accompanied by
distant echoes of the melody.
Kenneth
Hesketh has now written a significant body of work for brass
and wind band and is a composer whose versatility of expression
can sometimes belie the fact that his “natural” language is
very much at the cutting edge of contemporary music. His works
for band however often demonstrate a more conventionally melodic
side to his nature, The Alchymist’s Journal comprising
a set of brilliantly scored continuous variations, each developed
from the same six note motif and drawing inspiration from the
book by American author Evan S. Connell. The Alchymist’s
Journal is one of two works on the disc (along with Judith
Bingham’s Prague) that have been recorded before, although
in the case of the Hesketh this richly detailed new recording
easily eclipses the former by the Leyland Band and released
by Faber Music in 2003. Hesketh’s is a dynamic and exciting
musical voice that deserves greater attention within the brass
band world; to hear him write for band in his first language
would be an intriguing prospect indeed.
The
fact that Altitude is George Benjamin’s first published
work bears testament to his early reputation as a teenage prodigy.
Studies with Olivier Messiaen meant that he was already making
a name for himself when Elgar Howarth asked him to write a piece
for the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. Although now only two years
away from the milestone of his fiftieth birthday, Benjamin’s
output remains modest by many standards, the result of his fastidious
attention to detail and innate sense of craftsmanship. Despite
its early chronology Altitude exhibits much that is characteristic
in Benjamin’s music. In particular his obsession with clarity
of texture and detail is finely played out here in Bramwell
Tovey’s perceptive reading, allied with playing of atmospheric
spaciousness from the Foden’s Richardson Band, impressively
capturing the feeling of flight at high altitude that the composer
intended. Remarkably and despite having been broadcast numerous
times on Radio Three, this is the work’s first release on CD.
Commissioned
by the BBC for the Manchester Festival of Brass in 1995, Judith
Bingham’s Prague caused something of a
stir when it was chosen as the test piece for the regional qualifying
rounds of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain
in 2003. Whilst having its supporters, many reactionaries within
the banding movement were quick to denounce it on the grounds
of its alleged unnecessary modernism, a wholly unfounded response
to a gritty, powerful work of rich musical imagination. The
work’s four sections draw their inspiration from Prague’s often turbulent past, invoking images
of the Golem, the clay creature created in the sixteenth century
by Rabbi Loew as well as the familiar settings of Charles Bridge and Wenceslas Square. As with the Hesketh work, Foden’s recording
clearly surpasses its predecessor (The Fairey Band under James
Gourlay Doyen CD143) with a display of at times stunning virtuosity
including magnificent playing from the upper end of the band
in particular.
Philip
Wilby has established himself as one of the most important contributors
to the brass band repertoire in recent years. Shadow Songs
however, remains one of his lesser known works, its introspective
character being in considerable contrast to the technical exuberance
of his band works conceived for the contest stage. Commissioned
by Paul Hindmarsh during his period as conductor of the Besses
o’ th’ Barn Band for performance at the Lichfield Festival,
Shadow Songs (or “Elegiac Fragment” as the composer
also describes it) is unusual for its almost wholly muted accompaniment,
against which Wilby places substantial solo passages for baritone,
trombone, soprano cornet and to close, a distant offstage cornet.
The baritone solo, beautifully played by Natsumi Inaba, is a
moving tribute to a former solo baritone player with the Foden’s
Band David Blunsden who died tragically in 1990 whilst the work
as a whole is dedicated to the doyen of the brass band movement,
the late Harry Mortimer.
There
are numerous examples of collaborative works in the classical
world, but Paul Hindmarsh’s idea to commission several of the
brass band world’s most influential composers to contribute
a variation to collectively form part of a centenary tribute
to Michael Tippett in 2005 was a new concept to the brass band
audience. In Bramwell Tovey, Edward Gregson, Michael Ball, Elgar
Howarth and Philip Wilby, the choice of composers was an inspired
one, whilst the theme of the Processional from A Midsummer
Marriage (also used by Tippett in the Suite for the
Birthday of Prince Charles) provided a melodic basis
for the work far removed from the style of Tippett’s one and
only contribution to the brass band repertoire, Festal Brass
with Blues.
It
is notable that in every case the individual personalities of
the composers appear through the variants, with Gregson and
Howarth in particular providing contributions that very clearly
demonstrate their own music fingerprint. Most impressive though
is the magnificent Birthday Fugue and Finale that Philip
Wilby provides as the conclusion to the work, once again played
with great panache and technical assurance by Foden’s and Bramwell
Tovey.
Bramwell
Tovey’s charismatic direction clearly plays a vital part throughout
this recording and it is difficult to imagine these works receiving
more dedicated, exciting advocacy than they do here. Foden’s
Richardson are in tremendous form, borne out by the fact that
as this review was being written they were successful in capturing
the title of British Open Champions 2008 (conducted on that
occasion by Garry Cutt) with a scintillating performance of
the test piece, Edward Gregson’s Rococo Variations.
Both
NMC and Paul Hindmarsh are to be congratulated on their enterprise
in bringing this project to fruition and as such this is a disc
that deserves to achieve every success, both within the brass
band world itself and in the wider musical world.
Christopher Thomas
