Heritage

Buy As You View Cory Band
Conductor: Robert Childs
Doyen Recordings: DOY CD 142
Total playing time: 68.07 mins

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The question of heritage causes a number of problems for people. What we make of it depends largely upon who is selling us the idea – and don't be kidded, even history can be packaged and parcelled up in easy to understand ready-made "historical experiences"

From theme pubs to theme parks, from tours of John Lennon's house to Longleat, the Tower of London to the Tower Ballroom Blackpool - selling Britain's 'heritage' is now very big business indeed. However, making our history into a commodity as every bit as saleable as a trip to Disneyland invariably cheapens us all, and so when we do take the opportunity to look back and try and understand our historical upbringings, care must be taken to ensure that what is presented is both truthful and accurate. If we don't, all we are sold is a distorted, dumbed down pastiche of the past, an MTV version of history served up to a gullible public in the form of bite size chunks of the "best bits" of our not so glorious heritage.

This applies to our own historical inheritance in the brass band movement – a movement that has far too often "airbrushed" the less savoury aspects of our history out of its collective consciousness. For this reason, the new release from Buy As You View Cory, entitled "Heritage" must be closely scrutinised – not just for the standard of the playing, which is as high as we have come to expect from the Double Millennium Champions, but more importantly because of the context in which the CD itself has been realised and produced.

Robert Childs has taken the opportunity to examine some of the earliest works for brass band – or more accurately brass ensembles, and his clear academic approach has unearthed four works of historical importance and one of historical influence to the brass band world.

All five composers featured were born in the Victorian age – from the earliest, the Welshman Joseph Parry (born in 1841), through Edward Elgar (born in 1857), Paul Gilson (1865), Oskar Bohme (1870) and Havergal Brian (1876). This was the age of the birth of the modern brass band, moulded and developed from the differing strands of European brass ensembles and British reed and wind bands, and so each of these composers formative years would have coincided with both the latter stages of the Industrial Revolution as well as the amateur musical revolution that was so encapsulated in the brass band movement. Robert Childs clearly emphasises and demonstrates the connections in full, starting with the earliest work to be resurrected – "Tydfil Overture" by Joseph Parry.

Parry was born in Merthyr Tydfil, the fulcrum hub of the Welsh industrial iron and coal industry of the 19th century, and a town that was owned by one of the most powerful families not only in Britain but probably Europe. The Crawshays were as rich as Croesus, but ruled their domain like latter day Herod's. When the family wanted a brass band, they bought one – players, instruments, conductors and the music. The resulting Cyfarthfa band – named after one of the major ironworks in the town was founded in 1838 and in its short 60-year history became one of the leading brass bands in the late Victorian age. In 1860 the band won the first Sydenham Contest run by the brass band impresario Enderby Jackson and came third at the first "National Contest".

The band was composed of professional players, whilst bandmasters were brought in to provide musical transcriptions of overtures and selections of operas and operettas. Parry was one such man, but his academic background in America and from the Royal Academy of Music in London meant that he was able to bring a revolutionary ear to the possibilities of this new musical ensemble – the overture is the result and thankfully due to the pioneering work of Professor Trevor Herbert and now of Robert Childs, it is now recognised as the oldest original composition written for brass band by a prominent British composer. The new arrangement for a modern brass band (many of the instruments of the late Victorian era are now obsolete) by Simon Wright is skilfully realised and retains much of the originals shape, style and compositional construction. Some 130 years after it was composed, it remains a potent and as relevant a composition as it was when Cyfarthfa, resplendent in uniforms with 24 carat gold tunic buttons played it at the baron's imposing mock castle in the town itself.

Havergal Brian is also a composer whose early life was inextricably entwined in the Industrial Revolution – this time in the urban sprawl of the Potteries in Staffordshire. Prior to the Great War he was known as composer of note, admired by the likes of Edward Elgar, Thomas Beecham and Henry Wood. His works however were lost in its aftermath, but it is interesting to note that a reason for this may lie in his own daring use of harmonic change, and compositional construction. "The Battle Song" itself was probably written for consideration the National Championships (possibly for use around the early 1930's) and although it was only submitted and subsequently recovered in sketch form, the music has a powerful sense of immediacy even today. Its loss at the time was profound, and its subsequent "recovery" has been a major historical connection to a time when a real opportunity to develop brass repertoire was overlooked.

Oskar Bohme was born in Dresden in 1870 and unlike both Brian and Parry he had early musical tuition in formal surroundings. He was a trumpet player of note and was a friend of Victor Ewald – another pioneering voice in brass ensemble repertoire at the time. His work, "Symphony for Brass, Op. 30" was written around 1906 and has similarities to the works of Ewald as the instrumentation used comprised cornet, euphonium and tenor horn. The four-movement work is an elegant example of its type and the foundations of modern brass band composition are evident. The arrangement by Stephen Roberts is truthful to its author and reveals a man of lyrical musicality yet complex musical thought.

Paul Gilson was a musician of pedigree who was asked by the Director of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels to write for their Wagnarian brass ensemble. At this time (around 1886) brass ensemble instrumentation in Europe contained many instruments that were commonly used in British brass bands and the ensemble itself would have numbered around 25 players. Gilson's "Fantasie" was written in 1894 and adopts a classical approach to its construction. Again, it is an elegant lyrical work in the European style, virtuosic and rhythmic, reflective and tranquil in turns. It shows conclusively that even though geographically it is music from a different cultural background, its basic compositional premise is linked inextricably to the other composers of British hinterland.

Edward Elgar is the most well known composer on this release and although his "Sonata for Organ in G. Op.28" is the only work here not directly linked to the development of the brass band, it inclusion is by no means less significant. The work has been skilfully transcribed by Robert Childs and the result is a work that sits easily with a brass band. Elgar was a man lost to the brass band movement – a loss that becomes more pronounced when we realise that only his maligned "Severn Suite" is his sole significant contribution to our repertoire. Like all four other composers featured here, his contribution should have been encouraged more at a time when he was a musician of the highest class.

"Heritage" is a most significant release, and at a time when the "Heritage Industry" itself is in desperate need of re – evaluation this CD cannot have arrived at a more appropriate time.

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