|
National Championships 2003
Test Piece Reviews: Sections 1-4
76 Qualifying Bands from all parts of Great Britain will be competing
for the first, second, third and fourth sections - here's what they'll
have to play.
 As
everyone should know by now, the reason why there are four Eric
Ball test pieces being used this year at the National Finals is
that 2003 is the 100th anniversary of the great mans birth. The
pity of course is that the Championship Section isn’t really
doing the same – the Music Panel of the BFBB decided that
one of his compositions wasn’t good enough for the premier
event and chose the rather sub standard “Enigma Variations”
which Eric Ball arranged (not forgetting as well, that it won’t
be played in it’s entirety, even in it's chopped up version).
So – the bands making the trip to Dundee will get the real
treat – some fine music from perhaps our greatest composer.
Guess who we think will be getting the better deal?
We think the bands would have enjoyed rehearsing the pieces –
they are full of melody, are easy on the ear and ask musical rather
than just technical questions of the players as well as the MD,
whilst there is enough about them to test the bands fully and ensure
that those with traditional qualities of tone, balance and tunefulness
do well – and that is surely what contesting at any level
is all about.
First Section
"A Kensington Concerto" was written as the set
work for the 1972 National Championships of Great Britain, which
were held at the Royal Albert Hall on the 14th October that year.
In the programme, Eric Ball himself wrote the following explanation
about the work – an explanation that holds true today.
“Designed as a single complete work, the concerto nevertheless
owes a great deal to the accepted classical form. Following a slow
introduction (somewhat unusually, this commences with an unaccompanied
theme for solo cornet), the Allegro is worked out in modified sonata
form, with the usual two main subjects. Much of this is scherzo
– like on character and the scoring features small groups
within the general ensemble.
Before completion, however, the Allegro is interrupted by a slow
movement, mainly in minor mode, rhapsodic and expressive. There
are wide ranging passages for soloists, accompanied by a good deal
of contrasting rhythmic detail. An episode is based on material
derived from the slow section.
The Allegro then returns to complete the sonata form, although,
just before its end, the tune with which the concerto commenced
is heard again, this time as a horn solo. A few brilliant sounding
bars then complete the work.
The work bears the dedication, “To Olive Rose and that gay
company of friends, now scattered, who in times past met annually
in the Royal Albert Hall, London, on the occasion of the National
Brass Band Championships”.
The dedication perhaps sums up the work completely – it is
a elegiac remembrance of things past – at times mournful in
memory to friends who have died, and is a work that exemplifies
the latter composing years of Ball’s life. Eric Ball was aged
70, and although the brilliance of the passion in his music was
now dampened somewhat by age, the embers still had a delightful
warmth and radiance about them. The music harks back to a somewhat
simpler time in the composer’s life – a time when pleasure
was gained through good friends enjoying a shared passion for music
making.
Like the Albert Hall itself, “A Kensington Concerto”
has been troubled by age – the technical aspects hold little
fear for quality players, but the musical shape is a totally different
matter. At the Norwegian Championships earlier this year, no band
in the Elite Section gave it a commanding performance – the
players it seemed mystified by the simplicity of much of the writing
(especially the opening theme on the solo cornet, which caused an
amazing degree of uncertainty) and the piece emerged triumphant,
and enhanced.
We think Eric Ball would have been pleased in a way – today’s
preoccupation for things to be faster, louder and higher is a million
miles away from the qualities the great composer brought to his
music. This is reflective beauty – and when a MD and band
capture those qualities then it sounds a quite beautiful piece of
brass band writing. Perhaps Dundee will see a return to those times
– even if it is just for a day.
Second Section
“Sunset Rhapsody” was written by Eric Ball
for the 1958 British Open Championships, which were held at Belle
Vue on 6th September that year, and which was won by the Carlton
Main Frickley Colliery Band.
Again, the composer wrote programme notes, but stated quite clearly
that the work was not based upon any specific programme, although
the title is supposedly evocative; but in order to aid the listener’s
imagination (and presumably the judges – Editor) Eric Ball
provided the following:
“The early themes, while quiet are “active” (the
day is not yet done, although it draws to a close). These are followed
by a broad, song like tune: a hymn of gratitude for the day, if
you like. After this, music in various styles may represent a retrospective
of the day’s events and moods – some grave, some even
fantastic, and many gay and light hearted. The music then dies down
as the themes heard at the beginning recur, followed by a passage
in which there is hardly any rhythmic movement at all, but constantly
changing tone colours – the “afterglow” of sunset,
perhaps! Finally the song like theme returns, but now it is a song
of farewell. The music dies away into silence, yet even as it does
so, the distant “trumpets of tomorrow” are heard.”
Technically there are no demands beyond those of the reasonable
upon the players (Ball stated this in 1958 as well), but the very
delicacy of the music brings its own problems; the fine quality
of tone, and a keen appreciation of relative balance of parts and
of tone colour are necessities to the proper realisation of the
music; and, particularly in the closing bars, a sense of a more
“interior” experience than that of mere sentiment.
The piece should test the ability of the MD’s to make music,
as well as test players to subdue their inclination to blow, and
blow big and hard. The winning performances should be those who
have heeded the words of the composer (if they have done a bit of
research), whilst the quiet ending will ensure that the adjudicators
won’t be disturbed by the “clapometer”. Again,
it is those traditional virtues of balance, tone and tunefulness
that come to the fore – and how bands find difficulty in mastering
them. This is a worthy test indeed.
Third Section
“Four Preludes” was composed in 1947 as a work
for non championship bands. The preludes of the title are as follows:
“Prelude to a Solemn Occasion” – which begins
with a characteristic hymn like theme and its expansive treatment
belies the miniature form it takes. “Prelude to a Comedy”
meanwhile is something of a pastiche of Elgar and is somewhat inspired
by that composer’s “Wand of Youth” and “Nursery
Suites”. The third movement is entitled “Prelude to
a Tragedy” and takes the form of a funeral march much in the
same vein of the famous Chopin march (even though it is in a different
time signature). Finally there is “Prelude to Pageantry”
which pays more than a little homage to Percy Fletcher’s “Epic
Symphony” and to the music of Arthur Bliss, rather than to
any Edward Elgar “Pomp and Circumstance”.
The works takes just 11 minutes to play, but in that time all manner
of music making is addressed in both style and technique. It is
not difficult by today’s standards for bands in the Third
Section but it will take a decent band to perform it well. Each
movement is around 3 minutes long, but they are 3 minutes of subtlety
and insight and will test the bands for sure.
The work was first used at the Nationals in 1948 in the Second
Section and was used once more in 1957 and again in 1962 in the
Third Section.
Fourth Section
“Call of the Sea” was written in 1953 and was
used at the National Championships as the Second Section set work
the following year, when a band called Wharncliffe Silver took the
top prize. It appeared again in 1960 when Rawmarsh Public were victorious
in the Third Section.
Apart from that, there is little more we could find out. The work
is approximately 9 minutes long and takes the form of an overture.
It begins in a “dreaming” manner as if the sea itself
is calling the listener into it dark depths and develops in differing
styles – always with a sense of a rolling undercurrent of
the ocean bubbling away. Technically it isn’t the hardest
of pieces to overcome, but there are musical aspects that will test
solo lines fully as well as the MD. There is enough work for all
sections of the band, but for us it appears to be something of a
one dimensional work and a little repetitive. Still, it is by Eric
Ball, so we are sure we will be proved wrong.
© 4BarsRest
 back
to top
| 
