Foden's Band

Band Classics...and all that Jazz
Conductors: Howard Snell & Michael Fowles
Soloist: Rex Richardson
2012 RNCM Festival of Brass
Manchester
Saturday 28th January

Foden’s regular Saturday night slot has long been one of the most anticipated events of the Festival of Brass weekend - and this year proved to be no exception.

This was a concert that will long be remembered for the rekindling of the white hot flames of the band’s artistic partnership with former MD, Howard Snell. 

Intensity

A concert of two very distinct halves saw the great man inspire Foden’s to perform with memorable intensity.

Philip Sparke’s bold ‘Pittsburgh Overture’ made for a lively opening to an evening billed as, ‘Band classics....and all that Jazz’; Howard Snell immediately bringing to life a quintessential bit of Sparke, albeit in its bracing Americanism and rhythmic interplay.

It was an exuberant, occasionally robust appetiser for a first half with a strong transatlantic musical accent.
 
Contrast

In contrast, Chicago based James Stephenson’s, ‘Trumpet Concerto No. 2 - Rextreme’, didn’t quite live up to expectations; soloist Rex Richardson suffering from problematic psellism in gravitating through Bb trumpet, flugel horn and piccolo trumpet.

The improvisation and a range of extended techniques, with circular breathing and multi-phonics predominating were impressive – but the overall impression was of a performer struggling to find his best form.  

It made for a combination that was not always entirely comfortable. 

Jazz thread

Continuing the jazz thread, Andy Scott utilised Foden’s formidable array of soloists to brilliant effect in his choreographed, narrated and brilliantly evocative, ‘Spirit of Mingus’; a visceral and at times dissonant tribute to a very particular and very complex jazz icon.

It’s difficult to imagine another band that could access the Mingus/Scott sound-world in quite the same way (with Michael Fowles in flamboyant control), with players dissipating to the back of the hall for the final adrenalin fuelled bars.

It might not have been to everyone’s taste (Rex Richardson’s husky narration was a perfect melancholic foil, even if it was almost impossible to hear) but there was no denying that this is Andy Scott exploring new and adventurous territory, with Foden’s enthusiastically following him every step of the way. 

Remarkable

It fell to Howard Snell to take Foden’s on a very different musical journey through the second half.
 
Still looking remarkably trim and attired in what looked like the same jacket he wore here 20 years ago, his direction throughout John Ireland’s ‘Comedy Overture’ and Wilfred Heaton’s masterful ‘Partita’ was a pure, unalloyed joy from start to finish.

From the smog shrouded opening of ‘Comedy’, that seems so much more appropriate to its orchestral title of ‘A London Overture’, Snell’s familiar economy of technique elicited playing of wonderful style, nuance and delicacy, with a reciprocal sense of respect shown in the immaculate individual playing from Mark Wilkinson and Lesley Howie amongst others. 

Potent

Foden’s performance of Heaton’s ‘Partita’ in the 1992 BBC Festival of Brass is the stuff of legend, but this was the most potent reminder of that occasion, as once again Snell revealed Heaton’s opus for the enigmatic masterpiece it is: “...like a pyramid in a desert – nobody quite knowing why it is there or for what purpose,” he intriguingly added in his eloquent introduction. 

Blazing light

Here he shed a blazingly clear light of understanding on a staggeringly sophisticated musical mind. 

And for all its echoes of Walton and Shostakovitch, there is no doubting that Heaton’s musical fingerprints are everywhere; quite remarkable for a piece that was written in its original form as far back as 1948.
 
As was the case two long decades ago, Foden’s didn’t put a foot wrong in a performance that seared itself into the memory banks. 

Let’s hope it isn’t another 20 years before we hear this combination in such scintillating form once again.

With that, and after a gem of a George Marshall march for an encore, Foden’s ‘Maestro Emeritus’ was on his way back to his home and his new found passion for boat building in France.

How the brass band world misses him. 

Christopher Thomas

^back to top