Music for Everyone

London North East Fellowship Band
Conductor: Ken Hillson

Also featuring:
Hadleigh Temple Timbrels
Conductor: Irene Ivory
Soloists: Stephen Kane (euphonium); Andrew Piper (clarinet); Marian Parker (piano);
Hadleigh Temple,
Saturday 31st January 

A packed hall gave a warm welcome to the members of the London North East Fellowship Band as they took their places for the annual Music for Everyone concert.

Their early arrival into the hall allowed Lt Col David Phillips, who was acting as compère for the evening, to make a few announcements and to engage in a little banter with the audience before the entry of Hadleigh Temple Timbrels.

In position

Once the eight timbrelists were in position on the small platform, the band struck up the Arthur Gullidge march “Emblem of the Army”, conducted by their Deputy Bandmaster, Dave Martin. With crisp articulation and a lilting feel for the 6/8 rhythm there was much attention to detail, and the band supported the timbrelists well.

Bandmaster Ken Hillson then took up the baton for the remainder of the programme, commencing with the “Grand March from Aida” (Verdi, arr Dennis Wright). It was a suitably majestic reading, despite the occasional mispitched note, and lapses of intonation in the cornet section. 

The band’s sole percussionist did sterling service, especially with some incisive work on tympani, before reaching one arm either side for resounding simultaneous strikes on suspended cymbal and bass drum.

Individual touches

Following a prayer, Lt Col Phillips introduced the first of the evening’s soloists. 

Stephen Kane, son of the International Staff Band’s Principal Euphonium Derick, originates from Bexleyheath Corps, but is currently studying at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. 

For his first item he presented Erik Leidzen’s ground-breaking solo “Song of the Brother”, accompanied by the band. From the outset it was clear that it was to be a carefully thought-out performance, with many little individual touches. Although not a big-toned player, the solo line carried clearly over the band, who generally coped well with the tricky accompaniment, with only a couple of moments of uncertainty when picking up the tempo at the start of a new section.

Peace

Stephen then turned to John Golland’s expressive “Peace”, with Marian Parker at the piano. It is frequently difficult moving from band to piano, and unfortunately Stephen did not quite get the adjustment right, which meant he had to concentrate so much on lipping down to keep in tune that it detracted somewhat from his interpretation of the piece.

Contrasting items

The band then brought two contrasting items, starting with “Czech Polka” (Strauss, arr Frank Wright). This was full of contrast and varied tone colours, with a suitably light touch and a rousing accelerando towards the end. 

Len Ballantine’s arrangement of “Shenandoah” was originally envisaged as a choral setting of John Oxenham’s words “Mid all the traffic of the ways”, the words of which were projected onto the screen as the band played. The band produced a warm, lyrical interpretation, with good balance and well-controlled crescendi.

Clarinettist Andrew Piper is from the Leicester South Corps, as is pianist Marian Parker. 

Calm and relaxed

He is currently Head of Music at a school in Leicester, and has frequently been featured as soloist with the Household Troops Band, in which he also plays tuba. 

The “Prelude from 5 Bagatelles” by Gerald Finzi encompassed a wide range of moods, at times calm and relaxed, elsewhere quite turbulent and agitated. It certainly captivated the audience’s attention right through to the brilliant trill and shot note at the end.

Fine example

Many would have recognised his second contribution even they would not have been able to identify it as the “Adagio” from Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto in A”. It was a fine example of sustained playing, with good support from Marian at the piano, and even when she turned over two pages by mistake she recovered well.

Effective

More familiar music came next, with Howard Evans’ setting of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord”. This first class arrangement featured the horns in the first two verses, with a soprano obbligato the second time through. 

The intensity built up nicely into the last verse, with some effective scoring for the trombone section, which on this occasion was made up entirely of Hadleigh bandsmen.

Many of those who regularly attend the Music for Everyone concerts are members of the Salvation Army’s “Silver Service Club” for older people, and they really appreciated the opportunity to sing along to some war-time melodies with Darrol Barry’s “Keep smiling through”. 

The words appeared on the screen - particularly helpful for those younger folk in the audience! – and the band also seemed to revel in the familiar tunes and Darrol’s sympathetic and colourful writing.

More Mozart

More Mozart followed, with Stephen bringing the “Allegro” from Mozart’s “Bassoon Concerto”. This time the tuning between euphonium and piano was much better, and one could relax and enjoy his playing, with neat trills and turns, coping well with the wide leaps that are so much easier to accomplish on bassoon than on euphonium, and the echo effects were particularly telling.

His last selection was Peter Graham’s “Glorious Liberation”, based round the song “He’s the lily of the valley”. 

After a slightly insecure opening, where the basses in particular were a little sluggish, Stephen dazzled the audience with seemingly endless strings of semiquavers played at breakneck speed, tripping smoothly off the tongue.

He brought a colourful, almost smoochy, touch to the slower central section, before a joyous romp to the finish. It was playing that no doubt brought much pride to his parents and girl-friend who were seated in the audience.

Timbrels return

The timbrels returned to the stage, having gained an additional two players, to perform to a recording of Dudley Bright’s scintillating march “Assignment”. 

Starting off in two lines as before, there was some amusement as they came to merge into one line, only to discover that space was a little too tight, leaving a couple on their own at the back. As always, their enthusiastic display went down very well with the audience, who also showed their pleasure when it was announced that the evening had raised nearly £850 for Bradbury Home, the Salvation Army’s residential home for the elderly in Southend.

Second slot

Andrew’s second slot consisted of just one work: Weber’s “Concertino” is one of the classics of the clarinet repertoire, and Andrew’s sparkling interpretation was quite stunning, with rippling runs and long expressive lines combining to make a most fulfilling musical experience. 

Andrew, who is currently a member of an amateur orchestra in Leicester, is clearly relishing his playing again, having taken something of a break whilst undertaking his teacher training.

Impact

From a clarinet classic to one from the Salvation Army brass band repertoire: New Zealander Dean Goffin wrote his “Light of the World” having been inspired by Homan Hunt’s famous painting of Jesus standing outside a closed door. The associated words were put up on the screen, which added to the impact of the music, particularly for the benefit of those to whom the words may not be familiar.

The evening ended in rousing style with a foot-tapping performance of George Marshall’s march “Soldiers of Christ”. Again, there was much attention to detail, and the bass solo was particularly effective, with a telling contribution from Carl Carter, standing in on bass trombone.

This series of concerts is now well-established in Hadleigh’s annual programme of events, and can always be guaranteed to both attract a good audience and to send them away happy.

Peter Bale

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