Essential Dyke Volume V - Celebrate Rotary

Conductor: Dr. Nicholas Childs
Soloists: Roger Webster, David Thornton, John Doyle, Leslie Howie
Doyen Recordings: CD193
Total Recording Time: 66.37

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This is the fifth in the popular easy listening CDs released by Black Dyke over the past five or so years, which features pieces that they regularly use in their concert programmes the length and breadth of the UK and abroad.

Like the previous four, starting with two under the baton of former MD, James Watson, and now with this third successive release under Nicholas Childs, they are aimed primarily at the type of brass band music lover who make up the vast majority of the concert audiences they play to: the people who rarely go to a brass band contest, don't particularly want to hear a huge amount of serious test piece music, enjoy pieces that has good tunes, like to listen to top class soloists and then leave the concert satisfied, full of enjoyment, and more than willing to put their hands into their pockets to purchase a reminder of what they have just heard.

It may sound a bit trite, and even a little patronising to those who do not fit into the above criteria (mostly hardened contest going bandsmen) – but it is a formula that does work, time and time again, and it is a formula that too many bands have chosen to ignore at their peril.  It is an unashamedly populist approach for sure, but still rather clever, and may strike some people as a policy of ‘never mind the quality, feel the width' variety; but at a time when getting concert halls full of people wanting to listen to brass bands is at a premium, there isn't anything too wrong with it is there?

This recording though, is slightly different from the other four for a number of reasons. The first reason is about a clever bit of marketing. The by-line to the title is ‘Celebrate Rotary', which for the uninitiated is not a celebration of the rotary engine found in Mazda sports cars or the invention of the clothes line found in small back gardens.

It is in fact a neat bit of coincidental birthday celebration – this time with the centenary in 2005 of the formation of Rotary International, the organisation that raises vast sums of money for charitable work abiding to its motto of ‘Service above Self', and which Dyke helped celebrate by performing the specially written title track march by Peter Graham in Cardiff earlier this year. 

They are one of those organisations that come in for a fair bit of criticism – mostly due to its perceived middle class ‘professional' membership, golf club etiquette and the fact that it is only open to those who are ‘invited' to join. Epithets such as the ‘Mafia of the Mediocre' and ‘Middle Income Masons' is often applied to them, although that may be a little unfair on an organisation that does a great deal of good work both in the UK and abroad.  

Peter Graham's up tempo march is a bit of a celebratory breeze – in the style of the great ‘Bandology' type march of Eric Osterling, although there is a nod and a wink to the type of Salvation Army marches such as the bright and cheerful ‘California'.   It's certainly one to get the Rotarian feet tapping as they jingle their collection buckets in front of you at the next Fireworks display.

The second reason is that Nicholas Childs is able to pick and choose from the huge Black Dyke library, titles that have a timeless quality about them; and a number are featured on the release.

Talking of titles though, the sobriquet ‘The Mighty Atom' was one that was used to describe the great Walter Hargreaves (although it was pinched from the great pre war New York strongman Joe Greenstein who was 64 inches high and weighed 140lbs and whose party trick up to his death was that he could bite a nail in half with his teeth!)

More memorable, and appropriate was the affectionate moniker, ‘The Wee Professor' due to his time spent at Kneller Hall. His cracking arrangement of the overture ‘Russlan and Ludmilla' is given a snorter of a run through here, and would we think would have put a smile on the cherubic face of the timeless little genius.

Dyke's impressive team of soloists are as usual on top notch form, with Roger Webtser revealing a tenderness and subtlety to ‘Du bist die Ruh' by Schubert which has been cleverly arranged by Thomas Wyss, whilst John Doyle lets rip with a scorcher on the now rather ubiquitous ‘Children of Sanchez', which is fast becoming the 21st century flugel equivalent of the over jazzed version of ‘Concerto D'Aranjuez'.

David Thornton clearly enjoys himself on Peter Meechan's neat arrangement of the archaeological Mantia air varie, ‘Old Lang Syne', but it is the superb bit of tenor horn playing of Leslie Howie on the warhorse, ‘Violin Concerto' by Mendelssohn that takes the biscuit. It is a fabulous bit of playing from a performer who continues to impress each time we hear her. 

The recording also features that too often little overlooked gem, Elgar Howarth's majestic ‘Music from the Elizabethan Court', which is superbly written and so suits a brass band in style and colour. All three movements are given excellent interpretations of compactness, balance and style and reveal once more the intuitive brilliance of Howarth as a brass band composer and arranger.  

Goff Richard's arrangement of Shostakovitch's ‘Romance from the Gadfly' is also a reminder that the old leftie didn't always write whopping great symphonies to make a few roubles either: He was clever enough to write some lovely film music as well, even in the mid 1950s, when Senator McCarthy was looking to imprison anything remotely Russian, from vodka and caviar to composers and fellow travellers in the film industry.

The recording is topped off with further classic Russian glory, with a whacking great run through Robert Childs' arrangement of the '1812 Overture', which breaths new life into the old stager, even if it is very, very loud and a touch raucous at times. We do wonder about the cannons at the end though, which for some unknown reason seem to be shot in perfect time to the music – were the Ruskies really that good in defeating Napoleon with precision cannon fire?

Even though this recording is aimed at the ‘occasional' brass band concert-goer, it also gives Dyke the chance to celebrate their 150th anniversary by reminding them that first and foremost, their reputation comes as the world's most famous contesting band.

That is shown by the inclusion of the first studio recording of, ‘…all the flowers of the mountain…', Micahel Ball's elegiac and lyrical homage to the Killiney Hill and Bay in Ireland.

It is a lovely, subtle work that unfortunately was not too well received by many who either played it or listened to it at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2004. The reason is of course to do with its form – it is not a pyrotechnical extravaganza, and ends in a sombre reflective mood – just the wrong things many like to hear at a brass band contest.  

The live recording by Dyke, which was featured on the CD ‘Kapitol Brass', didn't also quite do the piece justice (due to the acoustic and the possible re editing of a couple of nasty blips), so this more relaxed performance reveals the piece in its proper glory.  Here it unfolds with a serene feel for the beauty of the composer's musical intentions, and the time and space create some quite stunning moments of both individual and ensemble playing – especially the rippling raindrop effects which glisten on the oily waters of the bay.  It is a piece that will surely be seen in time as a composition of real stature.

It rounds off a very enjoyable release from the 150 year National and European Champions – one that is in a different league of quality than some of its other ‘light' recordings of recent times. The production has been done with care and attention (there are excellent sleeve notes from Roy Newsome), the playing is undertaken with real purpose and the musical content has something for every one – from the hard working Rotarians and occasional banding lovers, right through to those hard please contest anoraks.  

That is the formula, and the ultimate reason, for Black Dyke's continued success.

Iwan Fox

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