Sounding Voices Sounding Brass

Wingates Band, Andrew Berrymen
Warrington Male Voice Choir, Russell Paterson
Piano & Organ: Anthony Whittaker
Amadeus:AMSCD102

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Brass Bands and choirs have joined forces together for a very long time.  The acceptable mix of the two musical varieties complementing each other has been a winner for years at any event you care to mention where they’ve been presents.  For bands of course, its mainly religious events and concerts were you’ll see the two working together most frequently. 

From a concert perspective, they give the audience a breather from one of the performers whilst letting the other one shine and then they’ll join together for a variety of numbers whether it is hymns, a bit of opera or even lighter numbers.  It works; its bums on seats, which delights the promoter and gives everybody an enjoyable night and when it works (Christmas time being an appropriate example), the bands and choirs will happily repeat their joint venture together.  Sometimes of course, the ensembles will join forces and the mix doesn’t always work and the event is a one-off, but when the relationship flourishes between the two musical groups, a long lasting happy friendship evolves, not to mention plenty of joint events.

That’s the case with Wingates Band & Warrington Male Voice Choir.  The two joined forces for a couple of Christmas concerts in 2003 and together they’ve maintained a good working relationship that has seen them host each other for events and  they've even teamed up together for a concert or two in the Isle of Man in recent times including last year.  The choir were already involved and a number of players from Wingates were going to go over with the choir to accompany them, but the band were so taken with the Choir’s professional approach and standard, they all went across.  To give you an idea of the choir’s standard if you equate it to bands, they’d sit comfortably at The British Open, not necessarily finishing in the prizes but they’ll always give a full-bloodied whole hearted performance.

With such a good working relationship, it’s not the biggest surprise to have seen them make a CD together.  Recorded in April 2006, in Warrington, Sounding Voices, Sounding Brass contains seventeen tracks that you’d expect to hear at any joint concert given by any band and choir.  It’s the sort of recording where time will fly by when you’re sat in the car stuck in traffic, or will keep you entertained and chirpy whilst you’re doing those necessary jobs that you’ve been putting off around the house for as long as you can get away them. 

The band and choir do six individual items each with the other five being joint affairs.  Wingates under Andy Berryman are in good form throughout their individual items and having recorded this before taking the French Open title, it comes across on the recording that the partnership between musicians and MD has plenty of potential – something that is evident from their recent CD releases including the Nyman recording given the thumbs up by 4BR, victory in France and their performance at the Great Northern Brass Arts Festival last September.  They’re certainly a rejuvenated bunch who is back on track and heading in the right direction once again.

You’ve got a couple of marches in the form of Rimmer’s Black Knight and the familiar Grand March from Tanhnhäuser; Andrew McDonald, Matt Balson and the British Open Solo Champion, trombonist Philip Dias give accomplished performances of Love on the Rocks, Demelza and Yesterday respectively, before the band closes the whole recording with one of those classic ‘finishers’ in Finlandia.  

Led by Russell Paterson, the choir (not forgetting the band) sound like they had a lot of fun making the recording.  They’re nicely balanced in sound with plenty of clarity and produce a nice rounded tone.  This is evident particularly in Mozart’s Gloria (from the Twelfth Mass) and Schubert’s Sanctus and Non Nobis Domine.

Rather unusually though for Amadeus when the choir and band join forces, the balance is top-heavy in favour of the band and it takes the edge off some of the joint numbers – when it works as in Goff Richards’ arrangement of classic Tom Jones hits (they’re all there if you want to belt them out in the car whilst no-one else is listening) it comes across as planned, parts of Two Little Boys being a case in point.

That aside, you’ve got succinct programme notes giving a synopsis of each item in addition to the background to the performers.

As was said at the beginning, bands and choirs together is a concept that has always worked well and they will for a long time to come.  The next time you come out of a concert where you’ve heard good playing and singing (and you want that memento to take home, to remind you of a great night and having gone to the CD stand, discover they’ve not recorded anything together) this is the kind of CD that revive those memories, enjoyment is the key word here from two ensembles who work well with each other; don’t just take 4BR’s word for it, buy it and hear for yourself.

Malcolm Wood

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