Conductor: Prof Nicholas Childs
Soloist: David Childs
BBC Proms
Royal Albert Hall
Sunday 19th July
Black Dyke Band’s eagerly awaited return to the BBC Proms was boosted by a level of media coverage that certainly helped fill the Royal Albert Hall to near capacity.
A warm Sunday morning sun also shone on the snaking queues of Pondashers, brass band fans and regular Promenaders to revive memories of when Kensington Gore was a musical mecca for the movement. The only absentees were the ticket touts.
It was to be an occasion to remain embedded in future memory banks; Prof Nicholas Childs and his ensemble revelling in a demanding programme that broached the contemporary and classical to carnivals, cartoons and even a world record with Judith Bingham’s ‘Four-Minute Mile’.
That it was performed less than 24 hours after Josh Kerr broke the actual athletics record was the happiest of apposite coincidences as a splendidly paced rendition built in excitement to breach the finishing line.
Texture and dynamic
Much like Roger Bannister’s original feat, Frank Wright’s arrangement of ‘Le Carnaval Romain’ remains a recall in monochrome, although Prof Childs instilled vibrancy into his vivacious account.
Here the spectrum spoke in texture and dynamic with the bel canto euphonium playing of Adam Bokaris overtaken by a fizzy saltarello that bubbled along before the MD upped the pace in a breathless final flourish.
Here the spectrum spoke in texture and dynamic with the bel canto euphonium playing of Adam Bokaris overtaken by a fizzy saltarello that bubbled along before the MD upped the pace in a breathless final flourish.
The contrast with the bucolic English landscape of ‘A Moorside Suite’ could not have been more pronounced in a finely attuned appreciation of Holst’s own thoughts on its need for ‘rhythmic flexibility’, ‘calm, smooth cantabile’ and ‘tonal colour’.
A playful ‘Scherzo’ tripped along its path to a sublime ‘Nocturne’, Tom Hutchinson the tenderest lead, and a lean, noble ‘March’.
Heroic portrait
David Childs portraiture of Ernest Hemingway in Peter Graham’s ‘Force of Nature’ euphonium concerto, was appropriately heroic; an intoxicating combine of the writer’s risk-taking wanderlust, deep melancholy and uber-masculinity that was transfused through the soloist’s remarkable playing. The prolonged applause was the ultimate endorsement of his world class artistry.
David Childs portraiture of Ernest Hemingway in Peter Graham’s ‘Force of Nature’ euphonium concerto, was appropriately heroic; an intoxicating combine of the writer’s risk-taking wanderlust, deep melancholy and uber-masculinity
The second half saw further contrasts with outstanding renditions of Edward Gregson’s ‘Symphony in Two Movements’ and Philip Wilby’s ‘Paganini Variations’, with the MD’s appreciative understanding pacing his interpretations with nuance to temper the boldness of the writing.
The opening ‘Toccata’ to the Gregson was expertly structured from its fragmentary abstractions and rigorous syncopations, the following ‘Variations’ a glorious summation of variant form that came to an ending of absolute authority.
the Gregson was expertly structured from its fragmentary abstractions and rigorous syncopations, the following ‘Variations’ a glorious summation of variant form that came to an ending of absolute authority.
Lifted the roof
Wilby’s ‘Paganini', played in its original concert form, also saw the MD reveal it’s all too often overlooked subtleties – the variations defined not just by technical virtuosity but by their stylistic essence, especially in the tender flow of the reflective sections of writing. The gargantuan plena voce finale almost lifted the roof.
Sandwiched between them came the ‘breather’ of ‘Black Dyke at the Movies’, (the centrepiece the evocative playing of Phoebe Mallinson on ‘Concerto de Aranjuez’), whilst the witty encore of Peter Graham’s ‘Cartoon Music’ left a thoroughly informed, impressed and entertained audience with another reason to smile as they made their way into the Sunday afternoon sunshine.
Iwan Fox
