Grimethorpe Colliery Band

RNCM Festival of Brass
Conductor: Allan Withington
Soloist: Steven Mead
Sunday 27th January

As the 2008 Festival of Brass drew to a close after another action packed weekend of music, it appropriately fell to Alan Withington and the reigning English and National Champions Grimethorpe to round the Festival off in style.

With Steven Mead as the guest soloist in Vladimir Cosma’s ‘Euphonium Concerto’ and a programme capped by an eagerly anticipated replay of the band’s Nationals victory in Philip Sparke’s ‘Music for Battle Creek’ there was plenty on offer to whet the musical appetites of the audience in a Haden Freeman Concert Hall that was pretty much bursting at the seams.

Nearly thirty years on from its discovery in the British Library by Howard Snell, it is still difficult to believe that Vaughan Williams’ ‘Overture Henry V’ languished in dust for so long, unknown and unperformed. 

In reality it cannot be compared in the same light as the masterly ‘Variations’, that elusive masterpiece that had been at the heart of Brighouse’s programme the previous evening but it still makes a bold and effective concert opener.

VW’s stirring fusion of the English and the French eventually allows the celebration of English victory to blaze home with the familiar ‘Agincourt Song’ and ‘The Earl of Oxford’s March’ chief in the midst of the ultimate glory.

The band took time to settle through the opening flourishes but the noble strains of ‘Earl of Oxford’ were handled with consummate musicianship and sounds from the middle of the band in particular that would have warmed the heart of old Henry himself.

After the t-shirt clad antics of James Gourlay the previous evening, a waistcoated Steven Mead appeared rather soberly dressed in comparison, accompanied by Alan Withington (or Alan Morrison as he was introduced by Paul Hindmarsh…he won’t live that one down for a while!) for Cosma’s ‘Euphonium Concerto’.

Although born in Bucharest, Cosma has lived in Paris for many years and his made his reputation largely in the field of French Cinema. His inspiration for his ‘Euphonium Concerto’ however took him over the Alps to Spain with the two outer movements in particular being strongly influenced by Spanish melody and rhythm.

Steven Mead knows the work well, having recorded it with the Fairey Band and it showed. From the start everything about his playing was class. Technique was there in abundance of course but the sheer quality of his sound and range (his pedal register in particular was delivered with a sound like silk) were terrifically engaging.

John Meredith’s arrangement of the original orchestral accompaniment skilfully retains much of the vivid colour of the original and although there were passages where the band threatened to obscure the soloist (most obvious in the quieter passages of euphonium pyrotechnics) both the music and performance were immensely enjoyable.

Over the years ‘Three Figures’ has never grasped the band world’s imagination in the way that ‘Pageantry’ has left its mark. Howells’ tribute to Cope, Isles and Rimmer is considerably later than ‘Pageantry’, written twenty six years after his first foray into the repertoire for the 1960 National Finals and is a more elusive work than its predecessor, more subtle both in its harmonic and melodic content and as such not always easy to pull off.

And so proved to be the case here. It was not that the band did anything greatly wrong with Roger Webster and Michael Dodd in particular turning in some fine individual work. Yet it made for a strangely subdued close to the first half that belied a work that is ultimately both underrated and sophisticated in its language.

Vaughan Williams wrote the breezy ‘March Sea Songs’ around the time of his more successful and better known ‘English Folk Song Suite’. With the tune Portsmouth at its heart it’s a bit of Last Night of the Proms like frippery, but it was fun nonetheless and an unchallenging warmer upper for the band ahead of the first real meat of the second half in the form of the world premiere of Gary Peterson’s ‘Vocalise, Fanfare and Rondo’.

Swedish/American Peterson is a professional trumpet player of some repute, having been principal trumpet of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for the last eight years or so, but more tellingly a member of the cornet section of Eikanger.

That said, this is his first serious composition for brass band and it’s a monster of a piece, virtuosic in the extreme and no doubt influenced by his inside knowledge of the Norwegian band scene, both from his personal experiences at Eikanger and through Stavanger, who commissioned the piece but generously allowed Alan Withington to bring it with him to the Festival for its premiere.

Although having a tripartite title, the piece is continuous and, as the composer explained before the performance, is made up of only six melodies which he proceeds to break down into fragments and cells, from which is constructed the rest of the work’s material.

Grimethorpe got stuck into it with a vigour that was at times nothing short of stunning, the technical demands of the writing being right up the band’s street. That said, the considerable sophistication of the music left the feeling that another hearing of it was needed to get fully to grips with its content, something that the forthcoming Radio Three broadcast of the concert should allow those present to do.

In complete contrast another member of the Eikanger cornet section, soprano player Frøde Rydland’s simply titled ‘Song’ saw Steven Mead return in a moving tribute to the late Bengt Eklund. In a piece that mirrors the simplicity of its title in the music it proved to be a fine vehicle for the lyrical skills of Steven Mead, the melodic line sailing into the stratospheric regions of the instrument’s upper register.

And so it came to the piece that for many in the hall would have been the most eagerly anticipated of the night. ‘Music for Battle Creek’ concluded both the Festival and one of this year’s central themes in the work of Philip Sparke and in the circumstances Grimethorpe were never going to disappoint.

Blistering ensemble work, stunning dynamics and solo playing of the highest quality (Webster, Dodd and Crockford were all on fine form in the central Elegy) almost brought the night to a close before Alan Withington’s enigmatic reference to the lyrics of ‘MacArthur Park’ (“someone left the cake out in the rain”!) saw the band lighten the tone by launching into one of its party pieces, complete with a final soprano flourish that Kevin Crockford clearly enjoyed as much as the appreciative audience. 

A programme and performance not without its inconsistencies then, but one that offered much to intrigue, engage, entertain and ponder as Paul Hindmarsh said his customary thanks and confirmed the safety of the Festival for next year.

Despite Edward Gregson’s forthcoming retirement it seems that the Royal Northern will continue to lend its vital support to one of our most important annual events and with the 2009 programming well into the planning stages that is reassuring news indeed.

Christopher Thomas 

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