The Band of the Coldstream Guards

Heroes
Conductor: Lt Col Graham Jones
The Guards Chapel
London
Thursday 8th April

“Heroes” was the title given to a concert given by the Band of the Coldstream Guards to raise money for the regiment’s Charitable Funds. The regiment’s 1st Battalion is currently serving in Afghanistan, where they have suffered 5 fatalities, 25 seriously wounded, and a further 16 who have received treatment and returned to duty.

250,000

“Heroes” is also the title of a CD recorded by the band in conjunction with Decca Records, which has sold more than 250,000 copies, as well as receiving a nomination for the Classical Brits Album of the Year.

The band’s Director of Music, Lt Col Graham Jones, MBE, explained that the band had been invited to participate in the awards ceremony which is to be broadcast on television, and encouraged audience members to place their vote before the closing date.

Poignant setting

The concert took place in the Guards Chapel on Birdcage Walk, the faded standards hanging from the walls a reminder of heroic actions carried out in the past. It is a pleasant setting, with an ornate mosaic filling the front of the church behind the altar, although it has a very resonant acoustic.

The positioning of the pews also meant that the band was very spread out, which caused the occasional problem in co-ordination between the french horns on the audience’s left and the trombones on the right.

Precision required

The programme commenced with John Williams’ “Summon the Heroes”, the trumpet fanfare and drums echoing around the church, emphasising the need for precise playing in such a setting. As the woodwind entered it was a well-balanced sound, as their sustained lines contrasted with the rhythmic figures from the brass.

It was good to see both alto and bass clarinets included in the line-up, although the presence of a bassoon would have boosted the bottom end of the woodwind sound.

Conductor as arranger

In total contrast, this was followed by Graham Jones’s own arrangement of “I vow to thee my country”, the melody extracted from the “Jupiter” movement of “The Planets Suite” (Holst) and named “Thaxted” from the Essex village where the composer had a property.

The conductor abandoned his baton (and his white gloves) to lead this sensitive setting, making much use of small ensembles and chamber music textures, with the sound of the french horns blending nicely with the clarinets in the second verse.

Wistful Vaughan Williams

The film “49th Parallel” was apparently released on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Ralph Vaughan Williams was the composer of the music, and the “Prelude” was presented in a scoring that omitted the saxophones and bass trombone.

Opening with rich, full sounds from the brass, the woodwind introduced a wistful melody that could almost have come from the pen of Malcolm Arnold.

World Premiere performance

Rodney Newton is the Arranger in Residence with the band, and he had felt inspired to write a piece for them, to be entitled “Heroes”.

Taking the form of a concert march, Rodney has drawn on his experience writing film music to produce a dignified offering that celebrates the heroism of the valiant, whilst the occasional flattened harmonies seemed to remind one of the human costs involved.

Starting off with a fanfare on trumpets and trombones, a martial melody was introduced by solo trumpet before being taken up by the woodwinds.

Crisp dotted rhythms were prominent, and at one point the sound of John Storey’s euphonium soared over the band. With trumpets, horns and flutes answering each other in brief phrases the music gradually built up in intensity and excitement.

Evocative elegy

The band’s Composer in Residence is Martin Ellerby, unfortunately unable to attend the concert due to illness. “Elegy” is a movement from his suite “Commemorations”, an appropriate choice for the concert as it was written in remembrance of the bombing of the Guards Chapel during the war, in which the then Director of Music of the Coldstream Band and several bandsmen lost their lives.

Throughout most of the concert, the brass players used trumpets, but Lance Corporal Gavin Hall took up his cornet to play this piece, which incorporates references to the Regimental bugle call.

Following an atmospheric opening on tubular bells and drums, Gavin’s rich, warm sound was supported well by the band, an effective change of key enabling the soloist to ornament the melody in the second section.

Bravura horns

Ron Goodwin, who spent his National Service as a member of the Royal Artillery Band at Woolwich, was asked to provide the music for the film “Battle of Britain” when the producers deemed William Walton’s score to be not what they were looking for.

The band chose to play the film’s theme tune in an effective arrangement by Desmond Walker, with some particularly bravura writing for the horn section (which included one interloper from the Welsh Guards), who were singled out for praise afterwards by the conductor. The ensemble throughout was very tight, and the piccolo added its own touch of brightness.

Flugel to the fore

John Barry’s music for the film “Dances with Wolves” has been reinvented as the setting for the words “Here’s to the heroes”, having been taken up by various singers as well as being featured at the Festival of Remembrance from the Royal Albert Hall.

The band arrangement by Peter Graham featured Corporal Gareth Lancaster as the eloquent flugel soloist, his mellow tones being backed by a well-balanced brass chorale. Long, sustained lines predominated, with a prominent French horn countermelody towards the end. Lt Col Jones announced afterwards that Gareth has been accepted for officer training at Sandhurst.

Memories of the Cenotaph

Elgar’s “Nimrod” (arr Denis Wright) was a reminder of the annual Cenotaph parade, where it is always played by the massed bands, and brought some well-controlled sotto voce playing from the clarinet section, with the flugel featured once again.

Crescendi and diminuendi were carefully measured, and there was a sense of inevitability about the final climax, before the music died away to nothingness.

“Hymn to the fallen” was written by John Williams for the film “Saving Private Ryan”, and Paul Lavender’s arrangement made good use of the contrasting colours of brass and woodwind, with the low brass chord at the end being particularly impressive.

Percy Fletcher reworked

The final programmed item was Percy Fletcher’s “Heroic March”, transcribed for concert band by Philip Sparke. It was interesting hearing it in a new guise, with trios of French horns and trombones at opposite sides of the band, and with the clarinet runs making parts of it sound strangely reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”!

With the upper brass using flugel and cornets rather than trumpets it retained much of the character of the brass band original and made for a fitting finale.

The concert ended in the traditional manner with the Coldstream Regimental March “Milanollo” and the “National Anthem”, the audience responding to Lt Col Jones’ request for some full-hearted singing in the latter.

Peter Bale

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