After a highly successful concert appearance in Norwich the day before, Black Dyke completed a busy musical weekend with this eagerly anticipated afternoon appearance at the Corn Exchange in Bedford.
Top class form
From the opening motif of signature march ‘Queensbury’, the capacity audience knew that the English National Champion was in top class form - an opinion enhanced even more by the balanced power and delicacy on display in the Mendelssohn overture, ‘Ruy Blas’.
Sop star Benjamin Richeton was the first of the afternoon’s soloists, giving a superbly dramatic rendition of ‘On with the Motley’, whilst more reflective emotional impact was heard with a stunning performance of the hymn tune, ‘Deep Harmony’; the sonorous playing from Messrs Routley and Wade on BBb tuba giving the top end of the band the perfect foundation on which to shine.
Lyrical
It was followed by Zoe Hancock delivering a beautifully lyrical flugel solo ‘Dreams and Dances’ by Philip Harper; her smooth sound evident throughout and a pleasure to listen to.
The exciting music of Karl Jenkins in Andrew Wainwright’s transcription of three movements from ‘Stabat Mater’, staged with the cornets forming two separate choirs around the band, with another choir stepping out to the front, was stirring enough, but even that was topped by Paul Lovatt-Cooper’s ‘Vitae Aeternum’ which concluded the first half in thrilling fashion.
Grandstand
After a short break the second half opened with ‘Softly, Softly’, the theme tune from the 1960’s TV programme before principal cornet Richard Marshall gave a grandstand whip- through of ‘Tico Tico’.
Ben Dixon proved why he is regarded as one of the hottest tuba talents on the scene in a mature performance of Rodney Newton’s ‘Capriccio’ - with a sound and style that belied his years, whilst Gary Curtin awesome technique and crowd pleasing showboating was lapped up by a delighted audience in ‘Carnival of Venice’.
Scary
After his deserved ovation Gary returned to the front of the stage, this time without his euphonium to introduce in scary Vincent Price style, the cleverly put together ‘Black Dyke Spooktacular’.
For the finale, BBb tuba player Matthew Routley’s stentorian tones introduced, ‘Grand Overture 1812’ - played in rip roaring fashion to gain a deserved standing ovation in response to a fantastic afternoon’s musical entertainment led by Dr. Nicholas Childs.
The emotive encore ‘I’ll Walk with God', sent the audience dispersing into the early evening air with smiles on their faces and a few tears in their eyes.
Martin Blessett
