Fantastic Overtures - Volume 3

For a third time Howard Lorriman and Black Dyke dig into the musical ossuary to dust off the bones of what they hope eight more fantastic overtures. Have they succeeded in bringing them to life though?

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Black Dyke Band
Conductor: Dr Nicholas Childs
Obrasso Recordings: CD931
Total Playing Time: 65.09 

The third instalment of the archaeological exhumation of some of the more famous overtures of the classical repertoire continues apace with this latest release from Black Dyke.

Howard Lorriman is fast becoming the Lord Caernavon of the genre – opening up musical tombs to buff up the contents within like a latter day mix of Indiana Jones meets dust busters Aggie and Kim.

Appetite

His appetite for the job in hand is mightily impressive you have to say, even if some of the end results are a little mixed.

At his best he has been able to reinvigorate some pretty tired, aged arrangements that have formed the staple diet of many a brass band concert programme for the best part of a century. There are times however when what he seems to have achieved is a passing impression of Burke & Hare - nicking a long moribund cadaver for public display after a gruesome dissection of its internal organs.

Icons

In the past two years he has given us his take on classics such as ‘Zampa’, ‘Nabucco’, ‘Rienzi’ and ‘Oberon’. Less successfully it could be argued, he has also ventured into new arrangements of ‘Le Roi d’Ys’ and ‘Le Carnival Romain’ – banding musical icons if ever there were some.

He has also ventured into previously untouched territory too (although I’m sure there is a yellowing copy of ‘Waldmeister’ or ‘Marco Spader’ tucked in the back of a bandroom cupboard somewhere in the banding world waiting to be rediscovered), a course that perhaps sees him at his very best as a skilled practitioner of the difficult art of brass band arrangement.

Obstacle

However, the major obstacle to success remains - the restricted tonal palette from which he paints his particular musical pictures. Neat, detailed, reflective of the originals, they nevertheless remain obstinately colourless; skilled, almost academic exercises of the craft, but lacking in imagination and so reliant on pitch.

In their way they are direct descendents of the enjoyable, but flawed arrangements of Frank Wright – of which they themselves were the inheritors of the more inventive, but academically suspect arrangements of the likes of William Rimmer and Alex Owen.

Bravura

Exciting and bravura these new arrangements may be in turn, but the lack of texture and tonal colour makes many of the more familiar overtures such as ‘Light Cavalry’, ‘Poet and Peasant’, ‘Morning, Noon and Night’ and ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’, sound as if they have had a well meaning MOT rather than a complete meaningful overhaul.

It doesn’t make any of them any less enjoyable to listen to – especially when Black Dyke are on quite thrilling form as they are here, despite the odd occasion when exuberance does get the better of them as Nicholas Childs injects pace and power to the proceedings.

Cracking playing

The less famous items (or should that be less fantastic?) are brought to life better than the more familiar output, so that we get plenty of cracking playing on ‘The Gypsy Baron’, ’The Jolly Robbers’ and ‘La Belle Helene’ – all three requiring quite a surprisingly high degree of technical accomplishment from a band on top form to bring off in such exciting style.

The classics are whipped through with genuine appreciation and style too, making for an hour or so of high class fare, even if the subject matter at times doesn’t quite bear the very closest of examination. 

Bonus

There is however the bonus of excellent sleeve notes from Howard Lorriman himself, which makes for interesting reading given the absurd nature of some of the music’s original inspiration (fighting gypsies, spousal abuse, dodgy herbal drinks, money grabbing women to name but a few).

It’s a pity therefore that two of the pieces are given but the merest of mentions to fit the text into the insert booklet, whilst Mr Lorriman himself has yet to gain a CV entry that befits his input to another enjoyable rummage through dusty shelves and bones of the overture ossuary.

Iwan Fox

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