Crusade

Brass Band De Wâldsang
Conductor: Rieks van der Velde
Soloist: Brett Baker – trombone
LMP Recordings: 2006-01
Total Playing Time: 77.25

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OK, let's get the gripes out of the way first. There is nothing more frustrating than receiving a new CD, casting an eye over the track listing on the cover with interest and taking out the booklet only to find that there is not a word to be said about the music you are about to listen to. It is quite simply a case of the production team shooting themselves in the foot before a note of music has been heard.

Even more frustrating is the fact that we have recently called into question a good number of discs (most notably from Obrasso) that suffer the same unforgivable shortcoming. In this particular case it is Lake Music, the Dutch publishing company co-owned and run by De Wâldang's Musical Director Rieks van der Velde that lets the side down. What we get is a perfectly acceptable profile of band, conductor and soloist (in English) without a solitary word about the music, all of which incidentally is also published by Lake Music.

A surf around Lake Music's web site soon throws up notes on a good number of the pieces including, most critically, the work by Rieks van der Velde that lends its title to the disc. In fact Crusade turns out to be a new third section test piece; not that we would have known it from the CD information. But why should the paying punter have to spend time surfing the web in search of programme notes which clearly already exist and could simply have been reproduced in the CD booklet to begin with? Surely it makes sound commercial sense when in part at least the objective is to publicise and ultimately sell music published by the producers of the CD?

Once again we will leave the point open for consideration and hope that note is taken. Rant over!

De Wâldsang is a band with a reputation that speaks for itself. One of the most consistent and successful of bands on the European platform with eight top five placings in the European Championships this disc clearly finds them in fine fettle, as is guest soloist Brett Baker whose four contributions are uniformly first class.

So often when a programme is chosen with a strong commercial angle in mind it can have an all too negative impact from the point of view of listener satisfaction. Here though we get a finely balanced and thoughtfully chosen combination of music that achieves a successful mix of originals and arrangements.

Marco Middelburg's Red and Black is a cracking up tempo march that would sit up there with the best on the contest platform at the Whit Friday's and we reckon De Wâldsang's lively airing will win it more than a few fans. Richard Grantham provides two originals in Star of the East and Tallis' Lamentation. The Thomas Tallis theme will need no introduction but don't let the deceiving label of "lamentation" prove off putting. This is a cracking five minute number that Grantham imbues with echoes of the Agincourt Song as used by William Walton in his film score for Henry V. It produces some great sounds from the band and gives the percussion section a work out that they clearly relish.

Rieks van der Velde is the latest of many to jump onto the seemingly never ending Celtic music band wagon and his Celtic Moods is a series of contrasting episodes that whilst attractive enough melodically leaves the nagging impression that you have heard all of the tunes before. Of much greater interest is Crusade, which according to the Lake Music web site was written for the 2006 Gouden Spiker Festival. The music tells the heroic tale of a crusader and his journey to the eleventh century Holy Wars, a journey beset, as one might expect, by many an adventure along the way.

Thank goodness then that the English translation of the composer's programme note on Lake Music's website proudly asserts that "bravura and spunk prevail"! We're not sure about the latter but bravura there is in plenty, there also being plenty to challenge and entertain many a third section band in a score that is pretty well action packed from beginning to end.

De Wâldsang's Musical Director also shows us his considerable talents as an arranger in material ranging from the familiar strains of How D'ya Like Your Eggs in the Morning to the block busting scores for Band of Brothers and The Last Samurai by Michael Kamen and Hans Zimmer respectively. All would go down well in concert programmes although God and God Alone and De Zee (Amsterdam Arena Hymn) are possibly a little less inspiring in this respect.

And so onto Black Dyke's Brett Baker whose virtuosity and versatility on the trombone are displayed to admirable effect. Versatility is perhaps more the key word here than virtuosity on the basis that few are likely to argue Baker's abundantly obvious talent. The four chosen solos however all reflect very different facets of both the instrument and the player. Richard Grantham's Star of the East is a new addition to the repertoire, a bright and melodically appealing if slightly stayed concert piece modeled around the hymn tune heard at its heart. Robin Dewhurst's Homelands is less traditional in its upbeat, jazzy idiom.

There is just a hint of the band being too string for the soloist at times although Brett Baker dispatches the solo part with easy aplomb. Back to the days of Sousa for Keith Wilkinson's arrangement of Gardell Simons' The Volunteer and in complete contrast Robin Dewhurst's arrangement of Jimmy van Heusen's Polka Dots and Moonbeams. The silky ease of Baker's style in Polka Dots is unalloyed pleasure to behold and not to be missed.                             

At nearly eighty minutes of music there is no argument in terms of quantity here but quality is abundant in equal measure too. A well judged programme backed up by an impressively engineered recording, a star soloist at the top of his game and a band that remain one of Holland's finest all contribute to a highly entertaining disc. What a shame about those sleeve notes. 

Christopher Thomas

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