Brighouse & Rastrick Band

Conductor: David Hirst

Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
Sunday 11th May, 2003

Reigning Yorkshire Area Champions, Brighouse & Rastrick, concluded the 2002-03 series of Sunday night concerts at the RNCM, with music for the banding purist and traditionalist. On the back of their European adventure, no signs of tiredness at all, as we were treated to the music of local composer, John Golland. The concert opened with the March Prelude ‘Mancunia'. Composed in 1974, this is a piece that is rarely heard and you get the feeling of music being projected in the form of morse code. Right from the beginning, the music was clean and beautifully controlled by conductor David Hirst.

The band's previous Professional Conductor was of course, Allan Withington. Whilst Allan was with the band, they recorded a CD entitled ‘Aria'. The title piece was written by Mr Golland and dedicated to Dr Roy Newsome and his wife Murial, and it was to the band's next offering. This really is beautiful music and throughout its ten minutes or so duration, we had wonderful playing from the cornet section as a whole and flugel Stephen Rogers. This was music that Brighouse certainly seemed very much at home with.

The major work in the first half was John Golland's Euphonium Concerto and it featured B&R's Principal Euphonium player, Steven Miles. Steven was on familiar ground at the RNCM, as he has studied Euphonium at the college and last year not only did he graduate from the RNCM, but was awarded the Gold Medal - the highest accolade that the college has for excellence in Professional Performance. Robert Childs first performed Golland's Euphonium concerto back in 1982. Lasting the best part of eighteen minutes, it is written in traditional concerto form: Allegro, Andante and then Allegro, and is continuous without any breaks. Golland's concerto certainly demands that the soloist have good technique and an understanding of musical excellence. Steven Miles certainly gets full marks for both those requirements, as his control of the performance was exceptionally high in quality. The cadenzas in both lower and higher register were refined and this was without doubt some of the finest playing heard throughout all the concerts at the festival. Thank you Steven for not just the performance, but the work put into it beforehand; you pulled it off superbly.

Brighouse closed the first half with their final Golland offering, and to the best of everyone's knowledge, the first public performance of The Lonely Sea and Sky. This was an early Golland work and was discovered in the City of Chester band's library. John Golland enjoyed writing music utilising the 5/8 time signature and this was evident in this piece. Listening to all of the music played by Brighouse of John Golland, the music came across as therapeutic and relaxing. Brighouse certain deserve acknowledgement for performing music quite at home in this festival. We were informed that concentration on the concert had begun on their return from Norway and with an appearance at the Musical Festival at Ashwell on Saturday 17th May, followed by their attempt to regain the Masters title in Cambridge on 25th May. The efforts of the band were warmly appreciated.

The theme of the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul was ‘Peace, Harmony, Progress' and John Williams' Olympic Spirit was written for the event. It is typical Williams - bright and lively and lyrical and just as in the first half, no dip in quality of performance.

The tempo remained upbeat with James Curnow's Psalm of Praise which has the hymn tune ‘Praise My Soul, The King of Heaven' featuring as the main tune.

Throughout his playing career, Alan Morrison has displayed his virtuoso brilliance with impeccable renditions of Harry James Trumpet Concerto, Buster Strikes Back and Sugar Blues. On this occasion, Alan chose the familiar Satchmo - the Kenny Baker tribute to Louis Armstrong. It was bold and certainly not bashful, and not a surprise that Alan received the biggest ovation of the whole evening.

A chance to get your breath back and the calmness of the Romance from Shostakovich's Gadfly, was followed by the sprightly Lezghinka by Katchaturian.

With their minds on various test pieces at present, Brighouse were certainly enjoying the chance to ‘let their hair down' (in a musical sense) and this was none more evident than when bass player David Hebb stepped forward to entertain us with some wonderful playing and humour in Teddy Bear's Picnic. The talents of Peter Graham as an arranger are just like his compositions - extremely musical.

Brighouse chose the hymn tune Crimond for their next offering and here Peter incorporates snatches from Eric Ball's Resurgum, with the overall result being breathtaking. The concert was brought to a close with the Derek Ashmore arrangement of the Finale from Tchaikovsky's Symphony number 4. The musicianship of Brighouse all evening had been tremendous and whilst this rendition was a touch conservative in terms of tempo, the quality of performance was the same as right at the beginning of the concert, outstanding.

The men from Brighouse top-and-tailed their second-half performance, with music associated with this fine band, the march West Riding and no surprises about the encore, twenty-six years on, and still going strong, The Floral Dance. David Hirst just stepped aside and let the men from West Riding take centre stage, and bring not just the concert, but the festival to a close.

Malcolm Wood

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