Brass Band Classics - Volume III

Buy As You View Band
Conductor: Robert Childs
Doyen: DOYCD178

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This will get you arguing down the pub. The third in the series of  "Classic" selections from the BAYV Band, but decided by the panel of Robert Childs, Bernard Jones and the late Gerald Coleman (the two founders of the BAYV Company) is perhaps the most controversial to date - although not in any kind of serious way.

Where as previously the choices have been undeniably uncontentious thoroughbreds, there are possibly a couple of pieces here that could best be described as "outsiders" or even "non runners" if we use the horse racing analogy. That of course is a personal choice, and that is what makes these CDs from the band so enjoyable both to listen to and debate.

There is little to argue over with "Life Divine" by the Welsh composer Cyril Jenkins, although it must be said, that the 1921 Crystal Palace test piece remains his only work of any great significance. His other output, such as "Corialanus" are certainly not in the same league of inspirational thought, and whilst "Life Divine" has a questionable entry on its musical birth certificate - it was originally christened "A Comedy of Errors", there remains no question mark over it subsequent claim to greatness.

It is also nice see that a bit of research has been done into finding out a bit more the composer's life as well and the sleeve notes have a compactness that invites the individual listener to do a bit of research themselves - they are neatly written "tasters".

Not so the selection for us of "Lorenzo" by Thomas Keighley - an old war horse of a piece if ever there was one, and so redolent of its time that you very nearly smell the brylcream, carbolic soap and Woodbine cigarettes. Where "Life Divine" is a thoroughbred, this is an equine musical nag that should have been put down and turned into glue and bone meal for the garden years ago. Hackneyed isn't the word for it - this couldn't be more hackneyed if it had a carriage lamp and a caped driver strapped to the score.

Where "Life Divine" can still send a shiver down the spine, and can still inspire players to perform wonderfully well (and on this recording the baritones and trombones in particular are in stonking form), "Lorenzo" just conjures up images of silent movies, music halls and five bob for a night out with enough change left over for a three piece suit and a bag of monkey nuts on the way home. Time has not treated it well - in fact time has treated Joan Rivers rather better, and to put it into a more modern context, the only equivalent Lorenzo of any note we could think of today was the lumbering over shiny centre half of the same forename who is so awful week in week out for Blackburn Rovers; Lorenzo Amaruso - the piece is made for him.

Still, that is what makes these CDs so enjoyable - you can argue with your best mates until the cows come home over each of the selections, because you know that the next one on the list may well be one that is right up your street.

And guess what? Following on from "Lorenzo" is a real classic - Eric Ball's somewhat neglected "Tournament for Brass", which was written for the 1954 British Open Championships, and won off the number 1 draw by Stanley Boddington and the Munn and Feltons Band. Fifty years after it was written it still has a freshness and the deft touch of the genius which means that it is both challenging to the players (although on this showing the technical aspects are overcome with a facile ease) and to the MDs (although Robert Childs gives the reading a wonderful sense of space and shape).

This is a lovely piece of brass writing - not quite today a heavyweight challenge for bands of this calibre perhaps, but still a piece that would test many top level outfits to the limit. Each of the three movements is written with specific purpose and musical thought; the opening "Trios and Duets" explores combinations that until the 1950's were rather ignored, whilst the "Solos" gives free reign in wonderful fashion for the performers to express their musicality without losing sight of the overall shape of the underlying music. The final "Scherzo" has a lovely playfulness and subtlety that only Ball at his best could portray with such ease. It is performed with a great degree of class by both band and MD, although the rather lively acoustic does take you by surprise (there are two venues mentioned on the sleeve notes, and perhaps this may explain the difference).

The final two entries for this release can also divide opinion; both are transcriptions of orchestral overtures, but where one is perhaps the finest example of its kind, the other isn't. You may be surprised though by which is which.

Geoffrey Brand's arrangement of "Carnival Overture" is an absolute belter; all bells and whistles and with a sense of brio and vitality that is captured in fantastic style, whilst Frank Wright's "Judges of the Secret Court" isn't.

For those old enough to remember the time when arrangements of Berlioz overtures formed a staple part of the brass band contesting diet, it may sound like heresy to suggest that "Judges" is really a second rate bit of work - but this arrangement, like many of the others he did at the time, is as bland and colourless as a 1961 school dinner (the year it was used at the Nationals). It is all stodge, meat and two veg with a semolina pud for afters: wholesome and filling, but as boring as hell and just lacking anything that could stimulate the taste buds - it is a piece that is crying out for a musical makeover.
 
2005 sees a new brass band version of that other archaeological relic, "Rienzi" which has been resuscitated out of its musical tomb by a pretty good new arrangement, so perhaps it is time for some of the potentially better offerings of Hector Berlioz to be treated to the same overdue refurbishment.

"Carnival Overture" on the other hand is quite brilliant, and is given an absolute cracker of a whip through by the band. The technical hurdles are overcome with such deftness and clarity that it is hard to believe that much of the work has more awful flats in the key signatures than a council estate in Merthyr Tydfil. It was one heck of a test piece when it was used back in 1980 at the National Finals, and it says something for itself that it hasn't been used too often since - it really is that difficult a piece to overcome with the style and panache it deserves - and one this occasion gets in spades.

All in all then, a most enjoyable way to spend just on a hour listening to a fine band on top notch form playing pieces that will get you thinking and debating long after the CD has come to the end of the last track - it did for the 4BR team and that is surely what it was intended to do. Roll on the next selection.

Iwan Fox.

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