MEN OF BRASS - A FEW BRASS BAND COMPOSERS
Although many major composers, among them Elgar, Holst, Vaughan Williams
and Bliss have been persuaded to enter the specialised world of writing for
brass band, much of its repertoire down the years has been provided by people
particularly associated with it. Not that even these have confined themselves
to that, as we shall see. But their achievements are worth recalling.
There was a time when virtually all the music played by bands seemed to be
composed or arranged by Williams Rimmer, born in 1862. He enjoyed his earliest
musical experiences in his father's Southport Rifle Band as drummer and
cornettist, transferring later to Besses o' The Barn Band. Soon William turned
to conducting bands, major ones of the time like Irwell Springs, Wingates
Temperance, Black Dyke (then styled Black Dike), Hebden Bridge, Besses and
Fodens. All these did well in competition at that time; in 1909 William was
a trainer or conductor of five of the six prize winners in the Open Championships
at Manchester. The following year he retired from conducting to devote himself
to composing, arranging and teaching; his pupils included that great doyen
of the brass world Harry Mortimer. Rimmer became music editor of the Liverpool
music publishing firm, Wright and Round, in 1913. He returned to conducting
after the Great War directing Southport Corporation Military Band for two
years. He died on 9 February 1936. So many other famous figures died around
that time - among them Dame Clara Butt, Rudyard Kipling and King George V
- that it seemed like the end of an era. In the world of brass bands Rimmer's
death appeared to have the same cataclysmic effect. Above all his compositions
were marches: Avenger, The British Flag, The Carnival
King, The Comet, Dauntless, Dawn of Freedom,
Faithful and Free, For Freedom and Honour, Kings of the
Air, Jack o' The Lantern, Knight of the Road,
Monarch, Ravenswood, Sergeants of the Guard, Sons
of Victory, The Virtuoso, The Wizard, The
Australasian, Black Knight, Cross of Honour, Honest
Toil, North Star, Slaidburn, The Bostonian,
Victor's Return, Viva Birkinshaw (a tribute to a one-time leading
Black Dyke cornettist) and, best known of all, Punchinello and The
Cossack, adopted by Fodens as their signature tune. Many of these, and
I have mentioned only a fraction of them, are still played, as are the cornet
solos Silver Showers, Hailstorm and Cleopatra the euphonium
solo Weber's Last Waltz and the Rule Britannia Overture.
Chiming Bells was a popular number around 1900 and the fantasia
Military Church Parade was also played. Rimmer's arrangements were
legion and included practically every operatic overture you can think of
not least of them being Balfe's The Bohemian Girl which I enjoyed
quite recently. He wrote for orchestra too The Bells of St Malo, The
Coster's Wooing, the march Southport Belles, a Tarantelle
for piccolo and orchestra and the gavotte Wedding Bells - all five
scores include as a reminder of Rimmer's band association, a euphonium.
William's nephew Drake Rimmer continued the family tradition of writing for
brass. Trained in Edinburgh, Manchester and Hamburg, his output for brass
included some larger scale pieces than William's marches and cornet solos:
tone poems on historical or literary subjects like Homage to Pharaoh,
King Lear, Macbeth, Midsummer Eve, Othello, Quo
Vadis, Rufford Abbey, Spirit of Progress, The Golden
Hind and Venus and Adonis; the symphonic prelude Via
Stellaris; the symphonic rhapsody The Flame of Freedom; and the
suite Holiday Sketches. He too arranged and conducted widely.
John A Greenwood (1876-1953) was a protégé of William Rimmer
and to a degree his career followed the same pattern: playing in a local
band (he came from Cheshire), then principal cornet with major bands; and
finally conductor and tutor to ensembles like St Hilda's, Black Dyke and
Horwich RMI. His compositions and arrangements were much fewer than Rimmer's,
but his memory is kept green by that popular trombone solo The Acrobat
whose second quick section makes use of the device of pushing out the slide
of the instrument to its fullest extent. This is still played frequently.
As a conductor, Greenwood, unlike William Rimmer, was a martinet. One of
his former players recalled that he was:
"A little chap and used to wear a posh suit with a waistcoat he had a watch
on a gold chain. Whenever he started fiddling with the chain you had to watch
out - he was about to make a lot of trouble for someone."
And Eric Ball said he "never saw Johnny Greenwood enthuse about anything."
Yet I have heard from someone who knew him of several instances of his kindness
and generosity.
Joseph Weston Nicholl (1876-1925), conductor of the West Riding Military
Band 1908-10 and of Black Dyke 1910-12, had a different musical upbringing.
His father was Halifax organist. Joseph a protégé of the great
violinist Joachim, studied under him in Berlin and later with Rheinberger
at Munich and Guilmant in Paris. Nicholl was a fine violinist, organist and
pianist. His best known brass band composition was the tone poem The
Viking recorded by Black Dyke in 1923; his arrangements for brass included
Bach's Little Fugue and Reubke's Organ Sonata on Psalm 94:
a far cry from the operatic overtures and Liszt tone poems and rhapsodies
transcribed by William Rimmer. For military band he wrote a Festival
Overture and a Commemorative Ode and March for the Jubilee of
the opening of the Halifax People's Park. In other media he wrote an opera
Comala the orchestral symphonic poem In English Seas, a
Concert Overture for organ and orchestra (1904), an early
Scherzo for organ and piano, the piano solo Carillon, solo
songs, like The Bells of Ys, and sundry partsongs. He died, sadly
early, of tuberculosis (ill health had prevented his being more than an adviser
to Black Dyke for the last 13 years of his life); the National Champions,
the St Hilda's Band, travelled to Halifax to join with his beloved Black
Dyke in a moving concert tribute to him.
Thomas Keighley, born in Stalybridge, in 1889, studied at the Royal Manchester
College of Music 1895-8 (he later became Professor of Harmony there). Like
Nicholl he was an organist; he wrote several musical textbooks (First
Lessons in Counterpoint (1929), First Theory Lessons for Pianists
(1920), Harmony (1914) and a Manual for Music (1913)), along
with piano pieces anthems, partsongs and arrangements for choirs like the
traditional King Arthur Had Three Sons (SATB), Minka (SATB),
Purcell's Nymphs and Shepherds (2 part) and Morley's Fire, Fire
(TTBB, 1930). His major works were however for brass band and no fewer than
six were adopted as test pieces for the Open Championships at Belle Vue,
Manchester Macbeth (1925), the first original composition (as against
arrangements) to be commissioned by those Championships, A Midsummer Night's
Dream (1926), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1927), Lorenzo
(1928), The Crusaders (1932) and A Northern Rhapsody (1935).
The Crusaders was revived in 1941, Lorenzo in 1942 and 1964.
Keighley was a well-respected teacher and adjudicator in the brass band world.
Denis Wright is unusual among brass band stalwarts in being born in London,
in 1895. His musical education was at the RCM and, after service in the Great
War, he took up a job teaching music in schools. His first contact with the
brass band world came in 1925 when he won a 100 guinea prize offered for
an original band composition. This was Joan of Arc, adopted as the
test piece for the National Championships in London that year. Seven other
major works by him were test pieces: The White Rider (National, 1927),
Overture for an Epic Occasion (National 1945), Princess Nada
(Open, 1933), Music for Brass (Open, 1948), Tam O'Shanter's Ride
(Open, 1956) and arrangements of Brahms' Academic Festival Overture
and Beethoven's 5th Symphony (both Open). Wright was General Musical Editor
for Chappell & Co in London 1930-6 and was on the BBC's music staff 1936-66,
during which time he composed works for brass band and orchestra together
for use in BBC Light Music Festivals in 1957 and 1958, respectively entitled
Casino Carnival and Cornish Holiday. He conducted and broadcast
in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and on the Continent. He founded
the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain in 1951. He died in 1967,
having given forty years' service to brass banding not to mention his work
in other musical areas. He produced over a thousand scores, mainly arrangements
of which 800 were published. Other important original compositions for band
we have not yet mentioned were the Carol Sinfonietta, a Concerto for
cornet and brass band, a Trio Concerto for for cornet, trombone and euphonium
with band, a piece with several Elgarian moments, the Glastonbury
Overture, the Salzburg Suite, the caprice Columbine and
the attractive tone poem Tintagel. In other forms we may mention merely
as examples the Romantica for brass quartet, the Two Passiontide
Songs of 1930 (for solo voice), the partsong (SATB) Pibroch of Donuil
Dhu (1925) and, for orchestra, the Dance Suite, Opus 17 for full
orchestra and Sketches for Orchestra and the Suite in 18th Century
Style, both for strings.
Our final figure, Frank Joseph Henry Wright, who died aged 69 in 1970 was
no relation to Denis. Australian born, he was well known in brass circles
ass adjudicator, conductor and copious arranger. No fewer than nine National
Championship test pieces between 1952 and 1971 were arrangements by him.
His publications numbered over a hundred altogether, many fewer than his
namesake. Original compositions were again fewer than Denis Wright's but
Frank could point to the Preludio Marziale, the march
Whitehall, the "diversions on an original theme" - Sirius,
the suite Old Westminster and the trilogy Threshold. From 1955
he was Music Director to the GLC; he was awarded an MBE in 1966.
Some of these figures were self-made men like Rimmer and Greenwood others
like Nicholl, Keighley and Denis Wright, studied formally at music college.
All however served the brass band movement faithfully and well and played
their part in enhancing the prestige of that movement.
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