Editorial ~ 2008: March

This month we give our opinion on regional success; Good grace and in praise of Australia's Band World magazine

Regional success

4BR has deliberately waited a bit longer this month with our editorial, as we wanted to specifically focus on the regional championships.

With just the two areas to go it has to be said that this year has been qualified success, and for a number of reasons.

First and foremost though has been the choice of music made by the Music Panel: five works that have proven to be popular and challenging, not only to the performers but listeners too.

Having bands play works that require them to locate the lost art of lyricism every now and again can’t be a bad thing, whilst getting conductors to do the same should be made compulsory before they are even allowed in front of a band! 

If there has been a disappointment in the six areas so far (and we are sure it will continue to the end of the month) it has been the high percentage of pretty clueless interpretations of Eric Ball’s Mozart inspired ‘Festival Music’.

Those out there who may have felt that a 50 year old piece of pastiche wasn’t hard enough may want to think again – it has taken a huge amount of casualties, especially from MDs who mistakenly felt that they, and only they, had somehow found the brass band Rosetta Stone of interpretation. What they had in fact found was a millstone that they themselves hung around their necks. 

The same goes for Kenneth Downie’s ‘Three Part Invention’, which is cut from the same musical cloth, and has also scythed down its fair share of conductors who felt they were the musical equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci.

Meanwhile, ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ and ‘Four Cities Symphony’ have been a delight and have resulted in perhaps the best standard of Third and Fourth Section playing we have heard at the regionals for many a year.

As for ‘James Cook – Circumnavigator? 

A great choice – very difficult for First Section bands, granted, but not impossible. However, there has been more mass sinkings on it than the German Imperial fleet at Scapa Flow, due mainly to the fact that many conductors had little or no idea how to approach Gilbert Vinter’s music.

Next year will be the 100th anniversary of his birth. With that, and perhaps what we have witnessed so far in mind, another year of music inspired by his particular brand of compositional musicianship could do everyone a great deal of good. 

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com      

Good Grace

Noboby likes to lose.

Given that some us have supported fairly useless sporting teams for the last quarter of a century of more, some are more used to it than others.

What does tend to get up these long suffering peoples noses though, is when those who have enjoyed periods of extended success cannot take it upon themselves to be gracious in defeat, even if they perhaps genuinely believe that they may not have deserved to have lost.

Unfortunately, 4BR has heard of more than one example of rather spiteful, mean spirited, sour and down right petulant graceless behaviour this year when bands have not been fortunate enough to be successful at the regional weekends.

It seems the Arsene Wenger/Alex Ferguson school of blaming everyone except themselves mentality in defeat has found disciples in the banding world (mainly the top section it has to be said). 

Their particular graceless antics are now accepted as par for the course when their team are beaten by what they believe is inferior opposition, whilst deflecting non-existent blame on the officials is also seen as fair game.

A few years ago Jim Watson walked off the Albert Hall stage after leading Black Dyke to an historic Nationals win when some idiot publicly bad-mouthed him and his band at the very moment he should have been enjoying the courtesy of congratulations from supporters and rivals alike. 

It was a low point that many thought would not be repeated, as it broke one of the unwritten rules of contesting: Always congratulate the winners – even if it is through gritted teeth.

We have all been there, but it seems some people believe it beyond their moronic appreciation of what banding is all about, to be gracious both in victory and defeat. 

Just think about it the next time you happen to be lucky enough to win and unlucky enough to lose.  

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com       

In praise of Australia's Band World

The news that the ‘Australia's Band World’ magazine is to close after 15 years tells you just as much about the state of antipodeans banding as it does the march of journalistic progress.

The advent of the internet and the way in which news, results, opinions and articles can now be accessed at ever increasing speed, means that the printed media has had to adapt and change if it is to survive.

Those robust enough financially can of course do that and more, extending and developing their product to both encompass and contrast with the new product it faces in competition.

It can only do that successfully however if there is an appetite for change in the very people who have for so long supported it.

In Australia it seems there isn’t.

Chris Earl has done a fantastic job in producing an ‘Australia's Band World’ magazine that in the past decade and a half has questioned and enquired, entertained and informed. In return however for the hours of sacrifice, he seems to have been met with an ever increasing apathy from subscribers and advertisers.

The immediacy of technology has overtaken much of what the magazine has traditionally had to offer, but it seems the Australian banding public were not prepared to invest in something that at its best, remained a very fine accompaniment to their musical interests. 

It’s a great pity that we see its end, but we wish Chris Earl and the Australian banding movement a very prosperous future.  The magazine will be missed in more ways than one.

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com      

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