The Peter Graham Collection

A recording of two halves from Dyke and the ISB, as Peter Graham's music get's an uneven retrospective.

~ Buy with 4barsrest shopping

Black Dyke & International Staff Band
Conductors: Dr Nicholas Childs & Dr Stephen Cobb
Double CD SPS: 250CD
Total Playing Time: 62.39 & 60.34

The latest collaboration between Black Dyke and the International Staff Band to record significant works of a leading composer in both the secular and Salvationist banding spheres, sees a retrospective of the music of Peter Graham.

Erudite

The Scotsman is a remarkably erudite composer for brass, with a lyrically inspired talent that enhances a core foundation of substantive, inventive technical proficiency.

There are few Championship Section test pieces for instance that combine both elements to such startling effect as ‘Harrison’s Dream’, with its ‘Golden Section’ of perfect technical scoring balanced by the elegiac beauty of the sorrowful depiction of the drowned sailor’s souls.  

He is also a remarkable composer of inspired pastiche and homage too – ‘The Torchbearer’, a respectful, sympathetic reworking of motif’s, ideas and even the unwritten spirit of some of Eric Ball’s greatest compositions.

Pretentious

‘Montage’ too, pays youthful homage (it is the earliest work featured in Black Dyke’s contribution, written in 1994) although in a more technically inspired manner. The Lutoslawski link is clearly defined, although it is difficult to understand to what, ‘framed argument’ the sleeve writer alludes to in the rather pretentious notes about the work.

The ‘mystic’ Olivier Messiaen and the neotonal influence of fellow Scot, James McMillan? Where on earth did this come from?

Even with the best will in the world, trying to reconcile the visual symbols of palindromes, circles and the teleological thrust of an arrow (can you be stabbed more than once by an arrow as the writer suggests?), to Messiaen’s devotion to the simple truths of Catholicism and Macmillan’s neotonal musical language (Graham stated in 1994 that Montage was written bitonally and polytonally) is tenuous at best; nonsense if you are less charitable. 

Colourful journey

In contrast, the composer’s fertile musical imagination is so much better served by his own notes to David Thornton’s wonderful performance of ‘In League with Extraordinary Gentlemen’ – a colourful journey on the coat tails of H.G. Wells, Conan-Doyle and Jules Verne.  

Black Dyke’s playing throughout is secure and composed, helped by interpretations that are broadly shaped, resonating with thoughtful musicality.

Less impressive

The performances of the ISB are less impressive however – at times scratchy and clumsily executed, although the works themselves are shaped with sympathetic understanding.

‘The Ambassadors’ march has a joyful evangelical zeal, whilst the colourful ‘Ad Optimum’ and the lyrical treatment of the choral benediction, ‘St. Teresa’ are neatly executed, if at times lacking ensemble balance.

The composer’s skill in interweaving disparate elements is imaginatively heard in ‘The Last Amen’, a work of power and glory, and the full rhapsodic treatment is given to the enjoyable ‘Blazon’, where the expansive technical compositional skills never overwhelm the simplicity or purpose of the gospel message.

Fulfilment

The popular ‘Shine As A Light’ sees the inclusion of a track previously issued on the 1998 CD ‘Odyssey’, (a personal favourite interpretation of the composer), whilst ‘Sinfonietta: ‘The Dawning’, is, as the title suggests, a wonderfully realised journey to transformation and fulfilment.

Unfortunately, ‘Seize the Day’ is anything but – not helped by the ISB apparently getting their parts about an hour before the recording took place. It sounds it too – in what is a rough old performance.  It deserved much better.  

Stature

It rounds off an overall recording of stature, although the faults, especially with the ISB’s contributions are at times too obvious.

Added to those sleeve notes (not all) and the sloppy post production (one totally misattributed picture – and what has become of the full title to The Torchbearer?) makes it a CD that was very nearly worthy of the composer’s music – but not quite.

Iwan Fox

~ Buy with 4barsrest shopping

^back to top