RNCM Festival of Brass: RNCM Brass Band and Brass Ensemble

Conductors: Dr Nicholas Childs & John Miller
RNCM, Manchester
Sunday 24th January

The Sunday morning graveyard slot at the Festival of Brass is never an easy session to fulfil. Last year the dubious honour fell to Fairey in what proved to be one of the less memorable concerts of the 2009 event.

This year it was the players of the RNCM Brass Band and Ensemble that had to drag themselves collectively out of bed to take the stage at 11.30am, but with the prospect of an intriguing programme that was co-directed by Nick Childs and RNCM Head of Brass, John Miller, it proved to be an invigorating mid morning pick up.

Tarantino

Perhaps if Adam Gorb had given his work ‘A Distant Mirror’ the alternative title he had considered of ‘I’m Gonna Get Medieval With Your Ass’  (as per Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction) it would have put a few more asses on the seats of the RNCM Concert Hall.

As it was though, it was a disappointing turnout for a concert that deserved better.

Britten’s ‘Fanfare for St. Edmonsbury’ is a mini masterpiece of antiphonal effect that was written in 1959 for the Cathedral of the same name in Suffolk. With the three trumpeters arranged to the stage and side balconies it made for an effective opening before the band launched into the familiar Arnold ‘Little Suite Number 2’, taken at a cracking tempo in the final ‘Galop’ but perhaps lacking a little mystery in the haunting, mist shrouded ‘Cavatina’.

Highly effective

Despite RNCM Head of Composition Adam Gorb opting for that less risqué title for his work of ‘A Distant Mirror’, it proved to be a highly effective piece, drawing its inspiration from a book by the American author Barbara Tuchmann that celebrates both the splendour and calamity of the 14th century era.

Gorb recreates the time through the use of plainsong as a starting point, the chant being imaginatively transformed during the course of three colourful, often brilliantly rhythmic and dynamic movements, and given equally exciting treatment by Nick Childs and the band.   

Gorb is known principally for his works for wind band but ‘A Distant Mirror’ is an impressive addition to the repertoire and it is to be hoped that the composer can be persuaded to write for brass band again soon.

In the meantime ‘A Distant Mirror’ would make a cracking (no pun intended!) first section test piece.

Paddle steamer

Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen’s  ‘Dampsanger’ (Steamsongs) was written in 2006 for a Third Section Norwegian band and paints a picture of the world’s oldest paddle steamer, “Skibladner” that still operates during the summer months on Lake Mjøsa.

The composer has always shown a commitment to music for amateur and less skilled musicians and the gentle lakeside daydreams of the third movement coupled with the lively dance-like finale inspired by the patterns of the steam from the boat, demonstrated a lighter side to Aagaard-Nilsen’s creative personality in a piece that could be effectively utilised as a lower section test piece in the UK.

World Premiere

With John Miller taking over the baton to direct the RNCM Brass Ensemble for the second half, Duncan Ward’s intriguingly titled ‘Between you, me and Pandora’s bed-post’ received its world premiere having been commissioned as part of Ward’s prize in being awarded the John Golland Composition Award at last year’s Festival.

Based on the Greek myth surrounding Pandora’s box and the evil unleashed from within, the work proved to be a skilful amalgam of jazz, blues and classical elements bound up in a tough harmonic idiom that revealed a young composer of striking talent.

It was gritty, complex stuff that the players of the ensemble dealt with admirably although it was also a work that needed to be heard again to fully get to grips with its sophisticated, eclectic and challenging musical language.

There is little doubt however that at just twenty years of age, Ward has a successful career ahead of him.

Personal elegy

Philip Jones’ widow Ursula was in the audience to hear Edward Gregson’s ‘Aria for Philip’, a personal elegy in memory of a man that had close connections with the college and Edward Gregson himself.

Quoting his own ‘Brass Quintet’, a work that the PJBE toured when Gregson was still a young composer, the ensemble gave a sensitive performance of Gregson’s brief tribute, the music’s sombre tones ultimately transforming in the closing bars with a peal of tubular bells to end on a blazing C major chord of joyful thanks.

Bold and bracing

Bruce Broughton had been unable attend the Masters last year when his ‘Masters of Space and Time’ proved to be a challenging and enjoyable test piece for both bands and audience.

It was good to see him at the Festival of Brass then for a performance of amongst other pieces, his ‘Fanfares, Marches, Hymns and Finale’, as bold and bracing an American work as anything by Copland in Wild West mode. 

The open air feel of the work, joyous, extrovert and skilful in its use of dissonance, was played with real zest by the young players of the ensemble and one could sense the respect present for composer that has won an incredible ten Emmy Awards.

Haunting

For all the Yankee bravura of the outer movements though, it was the haunting third movement that left the most lingering impression, music of the prairies straight out of Broughton’s score for the movie Tombstone and complete with echoes of hymns heard from distant churches across rolling plains; it was evocative stuff.

Congratulations then to the students of the RNCM for an inspired, brilliantly executed Sunday morning concert that got the final day’s main events off to an exciting start. It was both invigorating and inspiring.

Chris Thomas 

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