Conductor: David Bremner
Soloist: Tom Smith
Narrator: Dr Micha Lazarus 
2025 RNCM International Brass Band Festival
Sunday 26th January

David Bremner’s memorable appearance at the RNCM Festival was rounded off with outstanding musical assuredness as he led Brighouse & Rastrick in the closing concert on Sunday evening in Manchester.

Even an emergency half time soprano substitution didn’t disturb the New Zealander’s authoritative calmness (helped by Tredegar’s Robert Westacott’s excellent sight reading skills), as he expertly directed the West Riding band through a second half of eclectic antipodean challenges. 

The intricate weave of Dani Howard’s engaging ‘Warp and Weft’  had earlier opened the programme; the strands of horizontal and vertical ensemble lines emerging from a patchwork blueprint to coalesce in a richly patterned canvas with line-by-line intensity. 

Eloquent beauty

Eloquent beauty was constructed by principal cornet Tom Smith on the Denis Wright ‘Cornet Concerto’  – a time capsule of elegance from an age when substance was crafted rather than merely manufactured for purpose.  

The acclaim was richly deserved – the Cornishman now the complete performer. 

The soloist’s understanding of line and shape was marked in its maturity – a tender malleability that at no moment sounded forced, the tonality burnished by a modern purity that paid sympathetic tribute not artifice pastiche. The acclaim was richly deserved – the Cornishman now the complete performer. 

Deepest meaning

Eloquence of the deepest meaning came with Liz Lane’s ‘Silver Rose’;  a lament to both personal and collective loss of huge resonant meaning, as narrator Dr Micha Lazarus was a relative of the original poet Isaac Rosenberg who died in action during the First World War. The beauty of the text, recitation and music stilled the air. 

Dr Micha Lazarus was a relative of the original poet Isaac Rosenberg who died in action during the First World War. The beauty of the text, recitation and music stilled the air. 

Edward Gregson’s own compositional homage in ‘Rococo Variations’  brought the first half to a close; the nods of appreciation neatly linked together by the MD even if at times the ensemble didn’t always feel as if it was quite on first name terms with their hosts. 

Fine appreciation

The second half offered a fine appreciation of some of the leading and emerging composers currently writing for the Antipodean banding movement.

John Psathas’ ‘Saxon’  and Gareth Farr’s ‘Waipiro’  were used as the Championship and C Grade set-works at the 2000 New Zealand National Championships and have not really resurfaced until now.  It is a pity as both offered something new to the usual slew of test-piece fayre we hear all too often today.  

Brighouse delivered them with concentrated intent, as they did with 19 year old Estrella Wallace’s darkly moving ‘Ka mate te rea I te reaka kotahi’  that had a passionate dignity to its linguistic inspiration

Brighouse delivered them with concentrated intent, as they did with 19 year old Estrella Wallace’s darkly moving ‘Ka mate te rea I te reaka kotahi’  that had a passionate dignity to its linguistic inspiration, whilst Paul Terracini’s ‘Gegensatze’  was a thoroughly imposing combination of symphonic boldness and brass band melodicism – the opposites attracting and completing each other fully.

 A fine concert and memorable weekend was brought to a close with Elgar Howarth’s ‘The Old Chalet’  - as embracing in the intimacy of its thoughtfulness of the late composer as it was distant in its echoes.

Iwan Fox