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2003 London and Southern Counties Regional
Qualifying Championships
Third Section - Retrospective
Adjudicator: Melvin White
Test Piece: Northern Landscapes - Peter Graham
The Third Section also had a great piece to get their
teeth into on the weekend and we think the adjudicator Melvin White
also enjoyed himself picking out the bones in all the 17 performances.
The overall standard was pretty good again although just as elsewhere
the “Earth Dance” sorted out the best from the rest.
Clarity seemed to go out the window too often here and lots of the
good work that bands had done prior to this third movement was cancelled
by MD’s taking too fast a tempo. It was a pity for many performances
never recovered the poise they had shown in the first two sections
and the last “Flight” usually ended up sounding overblown
and harsh.
That couldn’t be said of the three bands that filled the
qualification spots on offer and all three were worthy of their
final placings. Ware in particular were very good and benefited
from some super individual playing from their soloists and excellent
direction from Ken Durbin. The tempos were right on the button and
there was a rounded balanced sound to the band right through the
dynamic range. Two points clear and clear winners.
After them there were two closely matched performances from Fulbourn
and Teversham who came second and Sandhurst Silver who were third.
Nothing really to choose between them – we had them the other
way around, but two very decent bands putting in some fine playing.
Well done to the MD’s, P. Mott and R. Burke as well for playing
to their bands strengths and not opting for speed to generate the
excitement needed. Both deserved the trip north of the border.
It was a bit of a much of a muchness after that and we liked Stantonbury
who came 6th and East London who came 7th. They were beaten by Crydon
who came 4th and Hitchin who came 5th and to be honest there wasn’t
much to choose between them all. They all had annoying errors that
just spoilt the overall picture and the quality of band sound wasn’t
as good as the bands in the top three, but they were all fair to
good performances of a pretty testing work. There was a lot of positives
and all four can be pleased with their efforts.
Then the quality started to fall away and the negatives started
to outnumber the positives. All the bands gave it as good as they
could, but nearly all of them came a cropper on the “Earth
Dance” to some degree whilst the bands lower down the order
also had a poor final section that robbed them of coming higher.
A lot of work had been done by these bands on the first two sections
– creating the impression they were going to give a top class
rendition, but the tricky quaver work found them out as did the
lack of dynamic difference in the last movement. Nearly all of them
went for it big style in the last “Flight” and it cost
them dearly. It was usually overblown and hard and you could see
the points being ticked off. A pity.
Chinnor and Hungerford were the best of the rest and were closer
to the bands above them than they were from those below them but
they both lacked the overall quality in the final two sections that
those above them had. Below them then came a whole raft of bands
that we found difficult to separate and to be honest we had them
in no discernible order. Melvin White did though and placed Littleport
10th off the number 1 draw, followed by St. Sebastians Wokingham,
Bradwell Silver and Hangleton. Fair enough, but three bands that
could have done better if they had spent more time perfecting the
shape and style of the final sections.
Finally the bottom four struggled from start to finish and were
marked a little off the pace by the adjudicator. We agreed and it
was a struggle indeed in places as the basics weren’t mastered.
Nothing too drastic but tuning (especially flugels – in just
about every band on the day) was absent too often and there was
a lack of quality to the sound which wasn’t helped by a propensity
to overblow.
Our tips didn’t really let us down either and we had three
in the top five. We didn’t get the top two though and both
bands showed us up – big style. Sandhurst played to form and
came 3rd, whilst Croydon we tipped for 5th and came 4th whilst Hitchin
who we tipped to come 6th came 5th. East London came 7th after we
thought they may pick up the runners up spot in our pre match preview
whilst St. Sebastian (tipped for 4th) came 11th and Bradwell (tipped
to win) came 12th. Our dark horses never hit the track at top speed
and Medway came 15th.
Still we enjoyed this section and three bands will be making the
trip to Dundee with high hopes of doing well.
© 4BarsRest
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