Black Dyke set the musical tone for the 2016 RNCM Brass Band Festival with a thoroughly engaging programme delivered with deep seated musical authority under Prof Nicholas Childs.

In front of the biggest audience of the weekend, the Queensbury band was on impressive form on works from Jonathan Bates, Bruce Broughton, Joseph Horovitz, Phillip Wilby, Dean Goffin, Simon Dobson, Michael Ball and Peter Graham.

Great Fire

The concert opened with the premiere of 'Panic on Pudding Lane' by Jonathan Bates; an accessible concert work inspired by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

It took the listener on a vivid musical journey that neatly intertwined the ensuing panic (although very few people actually died - and diarist Samuel Pepys was more concerned with saving his expensive Parmesan cheese) with referenced nursery rhymes and a central section of poised reflection.

Boisterous

It was followed by Emmy Award winning Bruce Broughton’s four movement symphony 'Fanfares, Marches, Hymns and Finale' - each reflecting their titles in a boisterous, filmatic structure full of terrific chromatic runs, powerful percussion and tremendous ensemble sounds.

The festival’s birthday celebrations for Joseph Horovitz and Michael Ball saw Black Dyke provide a brace of terrific musical presents.

Subtle

In the presence of the composer and Trevor Groom, who premièred the Horovitz ‘Euphonium Concerto’ in 1972, Gary Curtin delivered an engaging reading; a subtly shaped middle movement one of the individual highlights of the entire weekend. 

The first half closed with Philip Wilby's 'Five Rivers: A Pastorale Symphony' which depicts, with the aid of visual images, the various times and seasons of the Yorkshire Dales. It was an evocative, thoughtful performance that brought the bleakness as well as the rich fertility of one of the country’s most beautiful landscapes to life. 

Throbbing

Dean Goffin's war-time 'Rhapsody in Brass' opened the second half with ensemble warmth and solo musicality. The central interlude in particular was played with a breadth of control that engaged passion and refection in equal measure.

Simon Dobson's ‘Rampage’ was a bold contrast. Full of throbbing rhythms and taxing harmonies, it was a modern retelling of the ‘Tam O’Shanter’ tale - an escaping dance from a Sleepy Hollow nightclub with a thumping headache and a lingering, devilish sense of mischief. 

Katrina Marzella was fantastic form - even though at times the DJ kept the volume up far too loud on the accompaniment.   

Marxist fairytale

Michael Ball's endearing 'English Suite' was a neat, undemanding detour, before the evening closed with Peter Graham's 'Metropolis 1927' - a work that is a distant reflection of, rather than a direct inspiration from, Fritz Lang’s dystopian Marxist filmatic fairytale.   

As a result it should be treated as such - the slick performance once again  recalling the ‘happy ever after’ outcome that helped secure Black Dyke the 2015 European Championship title.  

Malcolm Wood