An Italian Night

Buy As You View Cory Band
Conductor: Dr. Robert Childs
Soloists: Philippe Schartz, Iona Jones, Stephen Barnsley, David Childs
Obrasso Recordings: CD898
Total Playing Time: 66.08

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To totally misquote a line from the Monty Python film ‘The Life of Brian': "What have the Italians ever done for us?"

Apart from in their former Romanic guise, you can certainly add the Renaissance, Ferrari cars, Spaghetti Westerns, pasta, Roberto Baggio, designer labels and even Pavarotti; but on the downside, they have also been responsible for the Borgias, rusty Alfa Romeos, art house cinema, pizza (although not the Hawaiian style chicken tikka stuff), Cattanacio defending, Donatella Versace and Mussolini.

What ever they have done though, they have dome it with inimitable style: even the traffic speed cops have a Lamborghini, the teenagers wear Armani on street corners, they drink Nazzuro instead of Carling Black Label, and they even named a tea biscuit after a 19th century revolutionary. It puts the Eccles cake and the Ford Escort firmly in their place.

The British are usually too reserved, the French too cock sure and self important, whilst the Americans wouldn't really know style if it slapped them in the face. No, the Italians are the masters of style – although at times it usually occurs at the expense of substance (anyone who has ever owned an Alfa Romeo car could tell you that) and when it comes to their composers, it is very much the same thing.

For this thoroughly enjoyable CD release from mid 2004, Dr. Robert Childs and his band don their best Armani suits, sprinkle on a bit of Aramis aftershave and proceed to really get to grips with some clever arrangements of the best bits of the light and breezy output of the composers of the land of Chianti and Carbonarra.

The 13 tracks cover output from the superstars themselves such as Rossini, Puccini and Verdi, as well as the popular back up line up of the likes of Bellini, Tartini, Scarlatti and Mascagni (it begins to sound a bit like the defensive formation of AC Milan at times), although we were left scratching our heads a little over the inclusion of Peter Tschaikovsky (although the Milan football team does have a brilliant Russian Andre Schevchenko in their ranks). It all adds up to over an hour of music that is as light and fluffy as the froth on a cappuccino coffee, and every bit as enjoyable too.    

The arrangements from the likes of Alan Fernie, John Howarth and Roy Newsome are as neatly done as you would expect, whilst there is the chance to hear the skills of Howard Lorriman, who top section players will become very much more familiar with in a few weeks time with his arrangement of Wagner's ‘Rienzi' overture. On this occasion he has produced a number of accessible arrangements, including a new romp through Rossini's ‘Barber of Seville' and a superbly structured overture from Bellini's ‘Norma'. In addition there are some skilfully understated accompaniments to the soloists, who on this release are the very elegant and urbane trumpeter Philippe Schartz and the lovely warm soprano tessitura of Iona Jones. In addition there is also David Childs on his usual top form in a bit of roly- poly fun by Rossini and a quite outstanding bit of soprano cornet playing from Stephen Barnsley on the lovely ‘Intermezzo' from ‘Cavalleria Rusticana'.

Schartz is a cool and controlled piccolo soloist on the Tartini and Bellini solo items, with a superb technique and fine sense of style and is also a sympathetic foil in the Scarlatti duet, whilst the light timbre of the voice of Iona Jones suits her contributions from Puccini's ‘Gianni Schicci' and Rossini's famous ‘Una Voce Poco Fa' from ‘The Barber of Seville'.

The band are on good for as well and display intelligence as well as excellent control in their accompaniment of all the soloists, whilst they certainly enjoy themselves with some rumbustious playing on their main items. As we have said, our only gripe was the inclusion of the Russian  - the link through his ‘Capriccio Italien' was just a bit tenuous to really merit inclusion, even though it is splendidly played, whilst our gripe with the producers is that they continue to produce sleeve inserts that give no information about the pieces being played.

What have the Italians done for us then? Well, certainly give us the chance for a quality brass band and some very fine soloists to showcase their talents to the full here – and you can't ask for more than that can you. Well, perhaps a nice red Ferrari wouldn't go amiss.

Iwan Fox.

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