2005
was a golden year for the Black Dyke Band in more ways them
one. Originally founded as a brass and reed band by Peter
Wharton in 1816, it was in 1855 that the band were taken
under the wing of the local mill owner and French Horn player
in the band John Foster. He provided the band with a new
set of instruments and uniforms as well as a room in which
to rehearse. So was born the Black Dyke Mills Band and an
association with John Foster and Sons that was to become
as synonymous with the band as its home Yorkshire village
of Queensbury, which to this day remains its base.
The
year of the band’s 150
th Anniversary could hardly
have been allowed to pass without lavish celebration and
2005 saw a plethora of recordings and concerts. The highlight
was the official 150
th Anniversary concert in
Manchester, which saw the band play to a sold-out Bridgewater
Hall.
On
the contest stage things got off to an apt start when the
band won the European Brass Band Championships in April
2005 for the first time in ten years. Subsequently they
added
the title of British Open Champions at Birmingham’s Symphony
Hall in September. Few would have bet against the band securing
the coveted “treble” by winning the National Brass Band Championships
Final at the Royal Albert Hall in October. There the test
piece was John Pickard’s challenging
Eden. Ultimately
however it was a controversial result that saw them take
the runner-up spot and lose out on the title to Lancashire
rivals Leyland.
This
CD charts Black Dyke’s contesting year, beginning with the
two works by Peter Graham and Johan de Meij that gave them
the European title. The European format of a set test piece
coupled with an “own choice” work has been a feature of the
contest since its inception in the 1970s. Latterly the leading
bands have jostled to play the latest works from the pens
of the movement’s leading composers. Black Dyke took this
to the ultimate level in commissioning Peter Graham to
write his
Journey to the Centre of the Earth,
the band’s performance on the contest stage being the work’s
world premiere.
Peter
Graham is often compared to the great Eric
Ball, the man who for many years was the leading brass
band composer. Like Ball, Graham’s
roots are in the Salvation Army although the comparison
is more accurately reflected in his reliance on melody
in its most accessible form. His music is attractive
whilst technically challenging and it is principally
for this
reason that the band world has taken him to its heart.
Graham
constructs his piece around several chronological scenes
from Jules Verne’s book which was written just nine years
after John Foster adopted the Black Dyke Mills Band. It
starts with Professor Otto Lidenbrook and his nephew Axel
on the
Summit
of Snæfells, followed by the subsequent
Descent into
the crater and the many adventures they encounter en route.
It is not difficult to understand why it met with such
an ecstatic reception at the contest. True, it was aided
by
an electrifying performance from Black Dyke but the classic
test-piece blend of emotional drama provided by the central
section reflecting Axel’s despair as he is
Lost in the
Labyrinth, allied with the sheer excitement of scenes
such as the
Battle of the Antediluvian Creatures proved
a potent combination. The actual live performance from the
European Championships is well worth hearing on the Doyen
two CD set covering the highlights of the contest. That said,
this subsequent studio recording is recorded in a tauter
acoustic and loses little of the excitement and adrenalin
of the day.
In
contrast to the fundamentally traditional elements of the
Graham, the set test-piece for the European contest, Dutchman
Johan
de Meij’s
Extreme Make-over, initially proved
a controversial choice. The controversy centred not around
the music itself, which is based around the
Andante Cantabile from
Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1, but its use of ten tuned
bottles played by the cornet section around two-thirds of
the way through the work. Such tampering with the “sacred” rigid
instrumentation of the contesting brass band was always
guaranteed to raise eyebrows although the piece gained
many admirers
following its round of performances at the contest.
It
opens with the Tchaikovsky melody heard in its original
form played by a quartet of two cornets, tenor horn and
euphonium.
The theme passes through a series of metamorphoses and
stylistic transformations that take in whiffs of minimalism
alongside
neo-classicism and medieval techniques. The latter manifests
itself in the “hocketing” of the tuned bottles. Various
other fleeting fragments of Tchaikovsky works - not to
mention
Stravinsky - are woven in along the way but de Meij never
resorts to mere pastiche or tacky imitation. Despite its
apparent allusion to reality television,
Extreme Make-over is
an apt title for a work that packs a great deal of punch.
It is difficult to imagine it receiving more sterling advocacy
than that given here by Black Dyke. An unexpected hit it
may have been but it’s a piece that has the potential to
retain its popularity for a long time.
As
a conductor
Bramwell Tovey has been involved with
brass bands on a sporadic basis for a good number of years.
With the exception of his
Coventry Variations, which
was utilised as a test piece for the Area Championships in
2004, he is a relative newcomer to bands as a composer.
The
Night to Sing is consequently Tovey’s first foray into
writing for bands at the highest level and it is unsurprising
therefore that its choice as the test piece for the 2005
British Open Championships prompted a good deal of interest.
Tovey’s
inspiration is drawn from the 1945 VE Day celebrations and
in particular a quote from an unknown woman in Chelsea on
8 May 1945, “this was the night to sing”. The music sets
out to reflect the turbulent emotions of the VE Day celebrations
both in terms of the joy of the celebrations themselves
and the deeper emotions and sense of grief that many would
have
felt at the same time. The language is broadly traditional:
indeed there are points when the music is considerably
closer to Eric Ball than Peter Graham ever gets in
Journey to
the Centre of the Earth. Yet there is also the sense
of a deeply personal response to the subject matter from
Tovey and as such, fine piece though it undoubtedly is,
it is not easy to see it finding a regular place in the
repertoire.
Dyke’s performance on the day of the contest was one of
only a small number that truly got inside the music. Whilst
there
are the occasional clips and lapses of ensemble that are
evident on this live recording, they do not detract from
a performance of real depth and musical substance.
John
Pickard prefaces his score of
Eden with
a quote from Milton’s ‘Paradise
Lost’. The concept of the piece combines modern day environmental
concerns with Adam and Eve’s journey into the outside
world following their expulsion from paradise. Pickard
had just
completed his epic
Gaia Symphony for brass band
prior to writing
Eden. Credit has to be paid to
the organisers of the National Brass Band Championships
for taking the unusually bold step of commissioning a composer
whose name would have been relatively new to many of the
competing bands.
The
decision proved to be a fine one in that
Eden was
well received by bands and audience alike whilst showing
itself to be a work of genuine dramatic and emotional power.
Cast in three linked sections, the first sets an atmosphere
of calm with Adam and Eve represented by euphonium and cornet
respectively. The tranquillity is short-lived however as
the serpent guarding the Tree of Knowledge challenges Adam
with a wonderfully manic jazz-inspired trombone solo. In
the violent second section it is human-induced chaos that
comes to the fore as the music dwells on the destruction
that mankind continues to cause to the planet. Eventually
the anger subsides to a mood of despair before a sense of
renewed optimism leads into a conclusion of slowly increasing
radiance. The composer cites a visit to the Eden Project
in St Austell as the inspiration for this last section.
As
is so characteristic of Black Dyke under the intelligent
direction of Nicholas Childs, their recording demonstrates
a sense of complete ease with the music. Here are a band
and conductor that know instinctively what needs to be brought
out of the score, both emotionally and technically. It makes
for a riveting listen.
Philip
Wilby’s
Northern Lights could be seen as the odd-piece-out in that
it is the only work on the CD not to have been used as
a test thus far. It was commissioned by Black Dyke as part
of their anniversary celebrations and was conceived as
an interactive project involving both musicians and dancers.
As a Yorkshireman Wilby knows his roots. The musical material
is based on the hymn tune
Deep Harmony which eventually
emerges through the texture towards the end of the work.
Particularly moving in this recording is the fact that
the engineers have grafted in a recording of
Deep Harmony by
the Black Dyke Band of sixty years ago. It’s a special
touch that lends a real sense of history to the proceedings.
The
Black Dyke Band are certainly the most successful as well
as the most famous brass band of them all and to have retained
their stature for 150 years against a backdrop of social
change that has eaten away at the very core of their existence
is a quite remarkable achievement. This recording is the
proof that they are still at the very top of their game.
Christopher
Thomas
AVAILABILITY
World
of Brass
Black Dyke
Band/Nicholas J. Childs 
