Leyland Band

RNCM Festival of Brass
Conductor: Howard Evans
Soloist: Katrina Marzella
Sunday 27th January

Howard Evans is no Kevin Keegan – but to be fair, given the short period of time he has been in charge at Leyland, he’s got much better results from his players than ‘King Kev’ has done so far with Newcastle United. 

That was obvious to all and sundry on Sunday morning as the man brought in at short notice to plug the gap left by the departure of Russell Gray did a wonderfully professional job of leading Leyland in what turned out to be an impressive RNCM Festival of Brass concert.

You could even forgive him his choice of bow tie too – a rather startling number that at times made you wonder if he had a special button in his pocket that could make it revolve or squirt water. By heck it was a corker – the colour and size of a South American fruit bat.

That aside, Leyland was on cracking form.

From a veritable vespiary of confident high class overture playing on Vaughan Williams’s ‘The Wasps’, to a good old fashioned brass band take on Hermann Pallhuber’s fabulous ‘Titan’s Progress’, this was Leyland close to their very best. 

Howard Evans was the key. Compact and articulate with his baton, he was a precise fulcrum around which Leyland organically grew in confidence. Given the short space of time he had been given to prepare the band it was a personal performance of considerable note, whilst Leyland themselves deserve immense credit for the way in which they corralled their resources through a demanding programme too. 

That opening overture, ‘The Wasps’ (a vibrant arrangement by Gary Westwood) was delivered with a keen ear and buzzing intensity of style. Although not as colourful as the orchestral counterpart it nevertheless retained the essential elements of the satirical wit required to illuminate the Aristophanes story, controlled with a deft touch from the middle.  

Katrina Marzella is the Queen Bee of baritone players of course and her performance of David Gillingham’s ‘Vintage’ arranged for brass band accompaniment was a showcase of technical virtuosity and musical nuance. Despite some rather heavily written backing, the solo voice rang true – delivered with vivacious aplomb by a superbly cultured performer.

Simon Dobson is a true talent. A rare gift of compositional intuitiveness finds a rather unique voice in his composition ‘The Drop’ which was used as the set work for the B Section of the European Brass Band Championships in Birmingham last year. 

This extended version (the original was subjected to a rather vicious criteria of 6 minutes or so duration) allows the musical idiom to develop organically, although in a surprising, almost Bernstein inspired new direction. The result is a work whose focus has undoubtedly shifted, although in an intriguingly enjoyable way.

The second half of the concert saw Leyland do their bit for the brass band musical archaeological department – headed on this occasion by Paul Hindmarsh with his ‘discovery’ of the forgotten concert march part to the Denis Wright ‘Tintagel Suite’, entitled ‘Arthur’. 

Unfortunately you could hear possibly why it was not added to the original test piece – a rather forlorn, Elgarian concert march of puffed out pomposity and stiff upper lip emotion. This was Arthur as Mr Pooter, the Grossmith inspired middle class clerk of no importance but of social aspirations. 

Kenneth Hesketh’s enjoyably bonkers ‘Infernal Ride’ (inspired by all accounts by his film music to the equally bonkers Tim Burton film 'Sleepy Hollow’ with Johnny Depp as the deliciously named Ichabod Crane) was a hoot – all dark flourishes, and a ride into the arms of the headless horseman, whilst Philip Sparke’s ‘Mountain Song’ was a widescreen brass band version of the opening credits to ‘The Sound of Music’.

All that was needed was a few cows with bells around their necks and Julie Andrews warbling from the top of the Matterhorn. Good stuff though – and both very well played.

Finally, ‘Titan’s Progress’ by Herman Pallhuber, and a piece that should be tattooed onto the cerebral cortex of any composer who thinks they can pastiche programmatic symphonic works for brass band.

This is a work old unbridled genius - a strangely wonky genius it must be said – but brilliantly, ever so slightly, magnificently, inspired brass band workmanship none the less.  The ideas and the musical ingredients – but most importantly, the style of the writing is just jaw droppingly, sumptuously good.

Leyland delivered it with a quintessential Englishness that made it sound ever so appealingly right and proper, although they never quite captured to quite capture that sense of Austrian folk inspired humour or the Mahler grandeur that Brass Band Oberostereich so stunningly did at the Europeans. It was damn fine performance though with which Howard Evans in particular should be congratulated.   

It rounded off a very enjoyable concert too – excellently directed and impressively delivered by a band on classy form. It was an afternoon matinee performance that Kevin Keegan surely would have wished he could have orchestrated.
  
Iwan Fox

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