2006 RNCM Festival of Brass: Brighouse and Rastrick
2-Feb-2006Brighouse & Rastrick Band
Conducted by James Gourlay
Vocal Soloist: Fiona Scott
Sunday 29th January
Brighouse and Rastrick chose a demanding programme to open the third day's concerts at this year's Festival and in all honesty, they seemed more at ease as a band towards the end of the concert, than they did at the beginning.
They commenced with a World Premiere – ‘Gonfalon' by Arthur Butterworth. With a heraldic feel to the music, it contained some fine playing from Alan Morrison, Nigel Fielding, Melvyn Bathgate, Neil Hewson and Michael Howley in particular and was in its own way an appropriate heraldic homage from Butterworth to his former mentor and teacher Herbert Howells.
Next up was a commissioned piece from the band 'Taliesin and the Cauldron' – by the talented Simon Dobson. This is without doubt a challenging work evoking numerous musical colours and images, and links to the story of the mystic Taliesin, magic and druidic tradition in a finely blended mix. Opening with some forceful percussion, this powerful descriptive work featured some fine playing from within the horn section and Nigel Fielding on soprano in particular. The composition calls for intense concentration, and on occasions, the music didn't seem to gel together as it could do.
The weak link in the concert (for this reviewer anyway) came in Wilby's ‘Unholy Sonnets' featuring soprano Fiona Scott. Brass and voices (let alone a solo voice) isn't easy to pull off, and the link between the two wasn't balanced enough throughout to produce a convincing performance. The band needed to be a notch or two down in the dynamics (to adapt to the acoustic of the hall) and whilst appreciating the composition, one of the few times the soloist was heard with real clarity was when she uttered a few expletives that are written in the third song!
Brighouse were at their best though in Michael Ball's ‘...All the Flowers of the Mountain' and Howell's ‘Pageantry'.
Ball's composition is one of a real beauty and takes its inspiration from near to where the composer lives in Ireland. Hence, it's a real musical portrait of his thoughts and perceptions of everything that enters his mind as he looks over Killiney Hill.
Originally commissioned for the 2004 National Finals in London, this performance was performed with a real sense of balance, both within the band and in relation to the acoustic of the hall and as a result it became a much more vivid interpretation. Alan Morrison, Nigel Fielding, Neil Hewson, and Michael Howley's contributions were commendable, and the lyrical middle section was arguably the band's best bit of playing of the whole concert. MD, James Gourlay produced a lovely lyrical feel to the music and must be commended for his approach which was full of understanding of the subject matter.
Howell's ‘Pageantry' is music that many of the First Section bands in the UK struggled with last September at the Lower Section National Finals. The first movement (‘Kings Herald') was extremely tight, and the ‘Cortege' section was dignified in its execution; Alan Morrison nailed the opening cornet fanfare at the beginning of the final section which led to a fine close.
The audience might not have heard vintage Brighouse throughout, but the contributions from Messrs, Morrison, Fielding, Hewson and Howley deserve recognition for their fine performance whilst MD James Gourlay deserved the plaudits for the bravery of his interpretations and his insistence in bringing the music out of all the scores on show.
Malcolm Wood
