Regionals 2010

The usual suspects are out in force again, but you wouldn't want to complain too much with the Pontypool Front Row...

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Black Dyke, Cory
Conductors: David King, Dr Robert Childs, Dr Nicholas Childs, James Watson
Doyen Recordings: DOY CD265
Total Playing Time: 66.02

It has come to something when one of the most eagerly sought after recordings in the banding world each year comes with the announcement of the following year’s Regional Championship test pieces.

The Regional CD may not be the most musically inventive release, but it is certainly the most popular. And you can see why it makes its money.

Marketing tool

As a marketing tool it cannot be beaten – especially as each year there seems to be at least one recording of the chosen repertoire which can be exhumed from the catacombs of the extensive back catalogue of one of the chosen bands.     

It is also a release that has an increasing feel of being something of a ‘closed shop’ too.

Contrast

Since 2002, Black Dyke has provided at least one recording for the release on eight occasions, Cory, seven, their conductors, Nicholas and Robert Childs, with various bands, on nine and seven occasions respectively.

In contrast, Grimethorpe has appeared just the once, so too Brighouse, whilst Fodens has three appearance (twice under Nicholas Childs). Neither Jim Gourlay, Garry Cutt has taken a band on a Regional recording in the same period and David King’s sole appearance comes this year with an old Black Dyke reprise of ‘English Heritage’.

This year, all the recordings are played by either Cory or Black Dyke. 

It is a bit of a tricky balancing act by the producers to weigh up the demand for hearing the chosen test pieces and being able to do produce the release in the most cost effective manner, but it would be nice to hear more than the ‘usual suspects’ each year – however well they play.

Savings

There is also a suspicion that there may well be a bit of saving on expenses going on this year too.

How much does it cost to add a very mediocre performance of ‘A Moorside Suite’ (surely played incorrectly in the first movement with the repeat?) from Black Dyke under James Watson of a decade ago?

And it would surely be beneficial to know when it was actually recorded, and if it was already available on a different release, without you having to trawl through the internet or your own CD collection in the house to find out. The sleeve notes are very lax on this release.

Although the performance of ‘English Heritage’ from Dyke under David King is of a much higher quality, the same oversight is made again. This time you don’t even get to find out when and where this one was recorded.  

It is also questionable, whether or not conductors will find anything of benefit from the Australian’s interpretation too – it is a very vibrant, if slightly heavy handed, idiosyncratic performance.

That we don’t get to find out (just a note that it is being used by kind permission of Albany Records) is a piece of sloppy post production work – something that should have been sorted out before the recording was rushed out.

Clear cut

That said, the current Black Dyke and Cory bands produce two very clear cut performances of the two works they are asked to provide possible contest blueprints for.

‘Labour and Love’ may have been dug up by the Music Panel in a piece of grave robbing Burke and Hare would have been familiar with, but Nicholas Childs resists the chance to whip through it with scant regard to its heritage. It remains a piece very much of its age though – almost fossilised in a style that younger players in particular will find baffling: its music to accompany a Buster Keaton silent movie.

Philip Sparke’s much more colourful reworking of the famous Saint-Saens ‘Organ Symphony’ is a delight though – although, much like ‘Labour and Love’, you suspect that it is a piece that will test bands at Fourth Section level to the very limit.

Unlike the Percy Fletcher work though, this one will be surely be enjoyed much more by players, conductors and audiences alike. It’s a little cracker, played with gusto by Cory in manner that will surely inspire bands not to make a pig’s ear of it (younger players will recognise the tune from a very different medium we suspect) on the contest stage.

Pontypool Front Row

Philip Harper’s ‘Kingdom of Dragons’ is a welcome work that should be enjoyed by bands in the Second Section.

Although it’s original Latin title of ‘Venta Silurum’ has been replaced by a slightly less historically accurate one, the inspiration remains the same – the four diverse political as well as historical areas of the former county of Gwent in South Wales.

It’s a clever mix of modern easy listening lyricism and rhythmic excitement, and whilst a few hardened ‘rugger bugger’ types will raise a well stitched, deep furrowed eyebrow at the inclusion of a homage to the frightening trio of scrummaging mayhem that was the Pontypool front row, the end result should not be as destructive to bands chances of success as being up against the ‘Viet Gwent’ of the Bobby Windsor, Graham Price and Charlie Faulkner on a cold January night at Pontypool Park in 1978.

For the time being though, this release will give a sense of anticipation of battles to come next year.

And for that, and perhaps that alone, it remains essential listening.

Iwan Fox

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