Within Blue Empires

Sometimes great brass band playing doesn't need the self justification or PR speak to go with it...

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Black Dyke Band
Conductor: Dr Nicholas Childs
Doyen Recordings: CD269
Total Playing Time: 72.02

As a year for celebrating anniversaries go, 2009 was a pretty decent one in brass banding terms – and as such, an opportunity not lost on such a slick commercial operation as Black Dyke.

Major works

In any other year a release featuring major works such as ‘Concertino for Brass Band’, ‘Psalms and Alleluias’, ‘Spectrum’, ‘Rococo Variations’ and ‘Within Blue Empires’ would be welcomed, but it does grate that somehow a PR department somewhere has tried to kid us into believing that the recording celebrates, ‘five significant musical anniversaries’.

Vinter at 100 – without a doubt; Wilby at 60 – stretching it.

As for Edward Gregson (wasn’t his biggie in 2005?), Kenneth Downie and Paul Lovatt-Cooper? You’d be lucky to get a team on University Challenge to come up with a ‘significant anniversary’ in 2009 on these three.

Blighted

A first win at the English Nationals doesn’t constitute an anniversary, neither does a 21st at the Nationals – and just try and think of something to remember for Dyke on ‘Rococo’ – their 23rd runner place at the British Open perhaps?

Black Dyke is a wonderful band, capable of truly wonderful performances, but at times it allows itself to be blighted by nonsensical promotional PR speak.  This is a very fine recording, but one that could have done without the meaningless self-justification.

Brilliance

Take for instance the confident, vibrantly coloured performance of ‘Spectrum’: The brilliance of the music stands proud and is performed in a manner that stays faithful to the original intentions of the composer. It is a fine reading and performance.

However, the assertion concerning the composer’s choice of purple instead of violet to end the piece is puzzling. Purple is the liturgical colour of penitence and mourning of Advent and Lent, but it is hard to find reference to it as the Christian colour of death, as suggested – which is surely black? 

As for the piece being inspired with ‘surgical creative energy’ or written for the British Open Brass Band Championship of Great Britain? Both are superfluous – the Open was a ‘Contest’ until 1979, when someone had the idea to call it a ‘Championship’ – but never ‘of Great Britain’ in any guise.

Thought process

The same thought process questions the mind with the detailed, highly polished performance of ‘Psalms and Alleluias’? Again, the music and the reading simply stand on their considerable merits – the talk of youth band ‘aspiration’ rather meaningless aggrandisement.

Neutered

Downie’s ‘Concertino’ on the other hand could well do with a bit of ‘talking up’. In its ‘contest’ guise it is a work that disappoints – although through no fault of its own. Picked by the Music Panel for the National Finals, only to be rather crudely neutered for no other reason than to meet time constraints, it demands to be heard in its entirety.

Dyke display a wonderful appreciation of the subtle nuances in the abstract scoring in a reading that also benefits greatly from the MDs deliberate insistence on musical flow. The overall imbalance brought by the missing ‘Scherzo’ however robs the work of significant impact.

Breathless

That is a claim that rather haunted the pre contest hype surrounding Paul Lovatt-Cooper’s ‘Within Blue Empires’. Breathlessly exciting, melodically astute, technically fearsome, it quickly silenced the critics who believed it was nothing but musical flotsam and jetsam before it was heard at Preston Guild Hall.

Dyke’s winning performance on the day was outstanding – as it is here.

The ‘whale song’ interlude remains a rather tricksy bit of aleatoric writing, whilst the overall dimensions of the work could do with losing a few blubbery pounds, but it remains an exciting addition to the repertoire, from a gifted composer.

Best

It is the Gregson ‘Rococo’ that finds Dyke at their very best however, with a work is so tautly written that there isn’t even a wafer thin mint of musical obesity on show.

That is also apparent in the reading of the score by the MD – a full minute and a half quicker than Foden’s recent recorded version.

It makes for an interesting comparison – and one to debate the next time a real anniversary comes round.  

Iwan Fox

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