Black Dyke has been a regular visitor to the Welsh capital ever since Nicholas Childs took the helm at the Queensbury band in 2000.

With the MD ensuring he hasn’t lose touch with his Welsh roots, the European champion has since gained a loyal following in the Principality – something that was shown by a good sized audience making its way to St David’s Hall on a bitterly cold night to enjoy Dyke on relaxed form.

Something for everyone

The slick presentational skills (they opened with a cracking fanfare from the pen of young Cornish composer Christopher Bond), allied to a cleverly targeted selection box of repertoire ensured there was something for everyone to enjoy.

Committed contest aficionados gained a sneak preview to what may well be the test piece for the National Finals later this year, whilst the occasional banding fan enjoyed two halves of easy listening works that ranged from Suppe to Glen Miller.

Classy form

The sextet of featured soloists were on classy form too – the pick of which was Richard Marshall’s delicate rendition of ‘Rusalka’s Song to the Moon’ and Zoe Hancock’s viscous ‘Dreams & Dances’.

Gary Curtain’s tempestuous ‘Herdmaiden Dance’ and Paul Duffy’s extravagant ‘When the Saints’ certainly put a smile on faces, although Brett Baker seemed curiously out of sorts with PLC’s throwaway trombone solo ‘Slipstream’, which sounded like a single catchy idea stretched a little too far. 

Crafted

The more seriously balanced first half also featured the obligatory ‘Queensbury’ march, the flashy ‘Gypsy Airs’ cornet feature, and an elegantly crafted rendition of ‘The Beautiful Galathea’.

It was rounded off with the intriguing Gregson homage to the ‘golden era’ of original brass band composition, ‘Of Distant Memories’ - although referred to by the MD (in a clever personal nod of appreciation to the old trick played by Fred Mortimer when giving illicit ‘pre-national’ performances of test pieces in the 1930s) by its extended nomenclature of ‘Music in an Olden Style’.

Rich understanding

Whatever its final contesting destination, the wonderful exploration of what Gregson calls a work that ‘summons up a kind of subconscious memory bank of musical languages, styles and forms’ was given a performance of rich understanding led by the MD who revels in this type of lyrical writing. 

With its interpretative recall of Percy Fletcher and other ‘pioneers’ such as Ireland, Elgar and Howells, Gregson has pulled off the audacious task of producing homage without recourse to pastiche in a work of contemporary resonance.

The Albert Hall audience could well be in for a treat come October – although, the pity on this form, not from Dyke.

Bubble and brio

The lighter tone of the second half was full of bubble and brio, featuring a tasteful whip through ‘Capriccio Brillante’ by Sheona White, played at a pace that ensured you heard every note delivered with articulate precision, the witty ‘Black Dyke Spooktacular’ and the bookend PLC flashiness of ‘Enter the Galaxies’ and ‘Immortal’ to top and tail things off.

The ‘Glen Miller’ encore was an enjoyable prelude to a throaty rendition of ‘Land of My Fathers’; An appropriate way for  one of the Principality’s favourite banding sons to end his latest trip back home.

Iwan Fox