From Russia with Love

Fodens Richardson Band
Conductors: Russell Gray, Roy Newsome
Soloists: Mark Wilkinson, Leah Williams
Egon Recordings: SFZ 116
Total Playing Time: 63.32

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There is a famous urban myth about the former communist Russia, when in the early 1970's a hard working member of the proletariat wished to purchase a brand new motor car from the state run motor company.

He had duly saved his rubles for many years and rang to place his order: "No problem, Comrade," came the reply from the apparatchik on the other end of the telephone. "Your car will be ready for you on the 15th October… 1982."  Bemused that Lenin's great worker's regime couldn't provide a mode of transport for him for over a decade, the poor party member was then dealt the ultimate indignity when informed. "However Comrade, you can decide whether you wish to take delivery in the morning or afternoon."

The story came somewhat to mind when this CD from the Fodens Richardson Band came to us to be reviewed. Recorded in April 2003 and October 2004, it has finally been released for general sale in August 2005. Not quite up there with ordering consumer goods at the height of the Cold War perhaps, but strangely overlong in the production process nevertheless.

There is also a bit of a Russian feel to it being a project that started out with so much promise, but somehow became derailed and shunted away, only to resurface and be completed as a matter of obligation.  This could and should have been a cracking CD, but you are left wondering what might have been if it had been able to have been completed in a shorter time span and with all the initial integral parts in place - a bit like the worker waiting for his motor car.

This is no fault of the band, as they perform admirably throughout, but you know something isn't quite right when the only mention of the conductors is in very small print on the back cover but not on the front cover or in the sleeve notes, (Russell Gray was MD at the time the recording started, but suffered a bit like Trotsky, and was not in place when it ended) or that there is any indication of which of the tracks either he or Roy Newsome, who was subsequently used to complete the recording, direct.

Added to this is a rather sub standard set of sleeve notes, well below what we have come to enjoy from Roy Newsome, as well as a cover that features only six of the eight composers whose music is played, although the sound production is as good as we have come to expect from Brian Hillson.  

Has for instance the brass band really enjoyed a love affair with Russian music for many years, as Roy Newsome declares?  Perhaps, but given that all but two of the eleven tracks have been arranged by late 20th century exponents of the brass arranging primarily for entertainment contests you do wonder if the title of the CD is more to do with a natty bit of marketing (and which has no connection with the 1963 James Bond film either) rather than historical accuracy, whilst surely there was other material available to boost the playing time by a few more minutes?

Fodens do give good value for money throughout however; with some authentic bold, robust and forceful playing allied to some lovely more subdued delicacy when required. In fact the band can master everything from a bit of Stalinesque Prokofiev to some romantic Rachmaninov with rhythms as complex as one of those never ending Russian dolls to something as lusciously rich and aromatic as Beluga caviar. In full throttle mode they can be as durable as an old Stalingrad T40 tank, but with an engine out of a Lamborghini. 

The short and sharp stuff is very well handled in fact (the Howard Snell contributions are as corkingly red hot as a slug of pure vodka), and both Mark Wilkinson and Leah Williams (who returned to Sellers over a year ago) are on excellent form as the featured soloists. Mark Wilkinson has been a sterling servant of the band for over a decade and gives a very distinguished performance of the Rachmaninov ‘Adagio' in particular.

Elsewhere the band enjoy themselves on well crafted arrangements from Ray Farr, Geoffrey Brand, Alan Catherall and Derek Ashmore, but the two extended (and oldest arrangements) of ‘Scheherazade' and ‘1812' are as bland and featureless as a block of communal workers flats in Minsk. Age has not been kind to them both, and there were surely better versions available to be used by the band. They do make the most of what they have got though, but so do Russian women with beetroot soup, but it doesn't make that any more appetizing either.  

All in all then you can see why this release reminded us so much of that initial story. In a Clause Four of the old Labour Party sort of way in fact, the fruits of these particular workers have been rather let down by the means of production, distribution and exchange. Who said communism was dead?

Iwan Fox

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