2006 RNCM Festival of Brass: Grimethorpe Colliery (UK Coal)

Conducted by Allan Withington
Soloist: Hakan Hardenberger
Friday 27th January

The honour of opening the 2006 Festival fell to the Grimethorpe Colliery (UK Coal) Band conducted by Alan Withington and with guest soloist Hakan Hardenberger. It was a memorable opening statement to what became a memorable event.

Grimethorpe's programme was both challenging musically and technically, and although it made for an opaque listening experience at times, it was never less than riveting.

Their contribution opened with Torstein Aagaard Nilsen's neat and intelligent ‘Hommage A Mozart' which took it inspiration from the child prodigy's first recognised work, played by a small percussion ensemble which was umbilically linked to his more mature ‘Divertimento No 7' which was given over to a second choir of eight players placed on the far right of the usual band set up. Binding both together was a third choir, made up of the rest of the band, but using material from the Norwegian as a musical bridge to join the two contrasting Mozart works together.

And work it did too, with the excellent tuned work of Gavin Pritchard in particular catching the ear leading the percussion ensemble in fine style and the all brass ensemble led by soprano Kevin Crockford complimenting and answering them in a form of twisted fuguto. It was light and breezy, superbly crafted by the composer and band and wonderfully led by the MD. As a hommage it worked splendidly and opened the whole weekend of brass playing in splendid fashion.

The brilliant Swede then took center stage looking remarkably like Paul O'Grady on a Lilly Savage day off. His playing though was no laughing matter. It was simply awesome.

In the presence of the composer Elgar Howarth he delivered a masterful account of his Trumpet Concerto with such power and technical brilliance allied to a sublime lyrical quality and an immense amount of wit and lightness of touch in the child orientated third movement. You could barely imagine a better performance. 

With these two more accessible works played to such a high level of red hot performance, Aagaard Nilsen's ‘Aubade – Dawn Songs of the Fabulous Birds' came was something of a disappointment.

The composer has tried to bring to the brass band idiom something Messien brought to the orchestral world, but as much as it explores the boundaries of technique and interpretation, the lack of real colour and different timbres within the brass band itself leaves it all slightly unremarkable to the ear – a menagerie of monochrome rather than fabulous technicolour in fact. It is an amazing piece of composition, but one that asks too much of the current set up of a brass band, even when played with such clarity of thought and execution by a band like Grimethorpe and Allan Withington.

The second half started with the 1895 Charles Godfrey arrangement of Humperdinck's selection from ‘Hansel and Gretel' which was gingerbread sweet but as close to the original as a Disney remake of the original story would be. Godfrey churned out these selections for over 30 years at Belle Vue, and although they are important historical artifacts in our banding history, they are not of much particular musical worth, with the individual musical episodes seemingly randomly put together to form a late Victorian ‘highlights' package for the musically illiterate working classes. In this day and age we would call it ‘dumbing down' – so there is nothing new under the sun all along.

Paul Hindmarsh's neat arrangements of early Finnish brass ensemble pieces from Sibelius were interesting fare, if a little overlong and showed a tantalizing glimpse of what could have been if the great composer had been brought into contact with the fledgling brass band movement in this country at the turn of the century. No more Charles Godfrey perhaps?

The superstar Hardenberger then returned to perform H.K. Gruber's ever so bonkers ‘The Exposed Throat'. The composer himself lists in his biography amongst other things to be a cabaret performer, and one thing is for sure, he is not your usual brass composing cup of tea type of guy. Paul Hindmarsh tried skillfully to describe the inspiration behind what he told us was a black and ironic work indicating that strove perhaps to describe the various ways in which the human throat region has been painted in art; in forms of torment and despair, in laughter and jollity, in beauty and intimacy.

He could have added that for many (including this reviewer) it sounded as if it was a throat slit by Sweeny Todd. My Grandmother used to say that sometimes some people are too clever by half in what they do, although people are afraid to tell them so, and so they get away with it. Well, Mr Gruber was too clever by seven and three quarters, and I'm afraid that he has got away with it for far too long.

As an exercise to showcase mastery of technique it was accomplished, if over long, repetitive and lacking in coherent thought. As a piece of music it was tripe.

Hardenberger was awesomely brilliant – a musician of the rarest technical accomplishment that it appears nothing is beyond his realm.  He can play anything anyone writes and as a display of his mastery of the different technical pyrotechnical aspects of modern trumpet playing it was immense.

Musically though it was Emperor's new clothes syndrome. It had no ironic subtext, no dark humour, no satirical edge, no nothing. Stamping your foot on a piece of wood (to stop damaging the floor of the auditorium in this case) was not big, not clever, just plain rubbish and cheapened the soloists contribution to that of making him sound like a one legged man in a tap dancing class.  Gruber must be laughing all the way to the bank. This was so far up its own backside, even Sooty would have felt a twinge by the insertion.

Hardenberger deserved the applause for his supreme effort – the shouts of ‘Bravo' were surely meant for him and not the music. 

Grimethorpe returned to give a robust performance of Malcolm Arnold's 1974 National test piece, ‘Fantasy for Brass Band' which sounded fresh and unlike Mr Gruber's offering, full of sly wit and ironic twists. It is a piece that has been sadly neglected over the years, but Grimethorpe did it justice here.

That just left a romp through ‘Shepherd's Hey' as an encore to a splendid opener to the 2006 Festival that had all the ingredients you could have hoped for.

Iwan Fox

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