National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain

Memories are made of these - even when some of the test pieces proved to be very hard tests to overcome at the Finals.

~ Buy with 4barsrest shopping

Five winning performances
Featuring: Black Dyke; Seindorf Beaumaris; Point of Ayr; Wellington (Telford); Lostock Hall Memorial; Grimethorpe Colliery
Conductors: Dr Nicholas Childs; Gwyn Evans; Mike Fowles; Stephen Cairns; John Wood; Allan Withington
Soloist: Robert Richardson
Doyen Recordings: CD251
Total Playing Time: 76.08

It’s always nice to reminded about just how good you are. The odd pat on the back, the raucous reminiscence down the pub, the misty eyed memories of growing age.

Opportunity

It’s a pity then that all that is now thrown out of the window with ‘live’ CD recordings of the moments of triumph.  The opportunity to embellish a victorious story in the years to come, the chance to enhance the reality, the downright pleasure in telling a few porkies to make things better than they actually were, are lost.

Now what you get is a packaged drinks coaster. Memories are made of these. CDs don’t lie (unless as one famous example of a few years ago, it is tampered with to eliminate a top C split at the Royal Albert Hall that could have been heard in Southend let alone the stalls). The romance has gone.

Sit back

Never mind though – you can still sit back and enjoy five National winners, producing performances that took the honours in London and Harrogate. All that and you get the allegedly alcohol enhanced (the 4BR lawyers told us to make sure we said that) highlights of Grimethorpe’s short pre results concert too.

Fine performance

Black Dyke’s winner on ‘Concertino for Brass Band’ is a very fine performance indeed. Once they had overcome the treacherous technical obstacles of the opening movement, Nicholas Childs produced a superbly shaped middle section and ferocious third to claim the band’s 21st National win on a piece that so deserved to be heard in its entirety.

As for Grimey? Perhaps a few sherberts were drunk as they waited to play (they were drawn number 1 in the contest chasing a hat trick remember) but they still had enough about them to produce a concert that filled the pre results hiatus without too much embarrassment (that came with Shiela Tracy). Rob Richardson in particular produces a very high class bit of playing on ‘Love of My Life’.

Welsh winners

A few weeks previously, in the rather less salubrious surroundings of the Harrogate International Conference Centre, two Welsh bands took National titles back with them to the Principality.

Seindorf Beaumaris brought Celtic passion to their winning performance of ‘The Saga of Haakon the Good’ in a rendition not without its errors and slips, but one full of vibrant life and character. It was a deserved victory.

Decent value

Fellow North Walians Point of Ayr were also very decent value for their win too – the only band on the day to just about overcome the demands of Dean Goffin’s ‘Rhapsodic Variations – ‘My Strength, My Tower’. The work was far too hard for the vast majority of the bands  – and you can hear why. It’s an excellent effort though.

Neat construction

In the Third Section it was Wellington (Telford) who produced a neatly constructed performance of ‘Suite for Brass’ that managed to capture just the right essence of lightness and folk inspired jollity. It too was a performance rich in character and understanding from the MD, Stephen Curtis and his players.

Liverpool docker

That just left the Fourth Section, and another over ambitious choice by the Music Panel which left a whole fleet of scuttled bands on ‘The Shipbuilders’.

Not so Lostock Hall Memorial though, and a fine quartet of seafaring inspired movements brought them a hard earned victory and celebrations that would have tested the constitution of a Liverpool docker.

Memories then are made of these.

Iwan Fox

~ Buy with 4barsrest shopping

^back to top