Musical Journeys - celebrating the music of Peter Graham 
Band of the Grenadier Guards
Conductor: Capt Andrew Porter
Soloist: Steven Mead (euphonium)
Regent Hall
London
Friday 28th March

Peter Graham’s personal musical journey has been one that has taken the Scotsman’s compositions to all corners of the globe. There cannot be too many countries left where his wind or brass band works haven’t been passported for performance.

It has also seen him provide his own conduit between the genres with skilful transcriptions which in wind band form especially gives a much broader colour palette that enhances the inner details that are sometime hidden by the tonal heft, and at times, clumsy over-emphasis of brass band contesting ensembles.

World premiere

The world premiere of his ‘Capistrano Overture’  was a case in point; Zorro’s blade a precision epee rather than meaty sabre in cutting its exciting swath of silent movie drama. The eponymous hero was certainly lighter of foot in giving the music its sense of adventure, the wit and passion agile in delivery.

Zorro’s blade a precision epee rather than meaty sabre in cutting its exciting swath of silent movie drama.

So too ‘Angels and Demons’,  which in its brass band form in the hands of an over-excitable conductor can become more Dan Brown than Book of Revelation.   Capt Andrew Porter understood the difference perfectly well, resulting in a performance of measured contrasts and tensions, rather than blockbuster bombast before reaching its surging climax.  

Mature insight

Steven Mead has given many commanding interpretations of the composer’s major euphonium works throughout the world.  Now, the exuberance of youth has been replaced by more mature insight, allowing the tempered appreciation to fully reveal the telling nuances of literary and personal characterisation to the second and third movements of his concerto, ‘In League with Extraordinary Gentlemen’. 

This was Sherlock Holmes as a cerebral problem solver, Jules Verne, making his global circumnavigation in first class comfort.   

This was Sherlock Holmes as a cerebral problem solver, Jules Verne, making his global circumnavigation in first class comfort.   

Regimented step

Elsewhere, the familiar sounds of ‘The Holy Well’  echoed with personal as well as musical nostalgia, whilst ‘Brillante’  neatly grew from canter to gallop to its triumphant conclusion.

A loosening of the dynamic leash made for a fine ensemble finale with ‘Shine As the Light’  delivered with more than a hint of evangelical zeal and the march encores keeping a highly entertained audience in regimented step as they left Regent Hall for home.   

Iwan Fox