British Music for Brass
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Arthur (Drummond) Bliss, Gustav Holst
Label: Great Classics
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: 414 644-1DW
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(A) Moorside Suite |
Gustav Holst, Composer
Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band Gustav Holst, Composer |
(A) Comedy Overture |
John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer
Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer |
Severn Suite |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Edward Elgar, Composer Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band |
Kenilworth |
Arthur (Drummond) Bliss, Composer
Arthur (Drummond) Bliss, Composer Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band |
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Gustav Holst
Label: CRD
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CRDC4134
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Severn Suite |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Edward Elgar, Composer James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass |
Henry V |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer |
(A) Moorside Suite |
Gustav Holst, Composer
Gustav Holst, Composer James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass |
(A) Comedy Overture |
John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer
James Stobart, Conductor John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer London Collegiate Brass |
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Gustav Holst
Label: CRD
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CRD1134
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Severn Suite |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Edward Elgar, Composer James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass |
Henry V |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer |
(A) Moorside Suite |
Gustav Holst, Composer
Gustav Holst, Composer James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass |
(A) Comedy Overture |
John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer
James Stobart, Conductor John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer London Collegiate Brass |
Composer or Director: Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Arthur (Drummond) Bliss, Gustav Holst
Label: Great Classics
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: 414 644-4DW
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(A) Moorside Suite |
Gustav Holst, Composer
Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band Gustav Holst, Composer |
(A) Comedy Overture |
John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer
Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer |
Severn Suite |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Edward Elgar, Composer Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band |
Kenilworth |
Arthur (Drummond) Bliss, Composer
Arthur (Drummond) Bliss, Composer Elgar Howarth, Conductor Grimethorpe Colliery Band |
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Gustav Holst
Label: CRD
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CRD3434
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Severn Suite |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Edward Elgar, Composer James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass |
Henry V |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer |
(A) Moorside Suite |
Gustav Holst, Composer
Gustav Holst, Composer James Stobart, Conductor London Collegiate Brass |
(A) Comedy Overture |
John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer
James Stobart, Conductor John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer London Collegiate Brass |
Author:
This is because the two groups of players are from two different backgrounds with, even in the quite recent past, not very much overlap. But today there is better, and growing communication between the two: young players from the brass bands often go to a conservatoire for training as symphonic brass players (and usually manage this very well, their background standing them in good stead); and the best of the brass bands (such as Grimethorpe) often engage professional symphonic brass players such as Elgar Howarth as trainers and conductors.
I can see nothing but good emerging from the process of interchange. Grimethorpe have listened to their symphonic counterparts and to their conductor, and have learned from them, and put fully into effect, the standard professional virtues of total accuracy, impeccable tuning, variety of dynamic, and perfection (generally!) of ensemble. And the young symphonic players, playing in so far as is possible their own orchestral instruments rather than the specific brass-band equivalents, have listened to the best of the brass-band repertory and have decided, with splendid results, to have a go at it themselves.
There is however, one major point of difference not yet fully sorted out. That is the hazard of vibrato. Old brass-band routine was a three-inch wide throat vibrato (known colloquially as 'nanny-goat') which disfigured everything the bands played. Grimethorpe and other leading brass bands of today have tamed this to a very acceptable degree indeed (classical singers wishing to improve the lot of the human-race could with greath advantage now do the same). Symphonic players, though, have customarily played (outside continental Europe) with no vibrato at all; and this the London Collegiate Brass do, too, in their new repertoire. I would suggest that neither body has it absolutely right; for what is really needed (but seldom achieved) is thoughtful discrimination. Some music must, from its nature, have no vibrato at all: for example the solo fanfares heralding Queen Elizabeth's arrival at Kenilworth Castle. I could wish that Grimethorpe's solo fanfare-players had agreed with this. Obversely, some other solo phrases, gentle lyrical ones particularly, must, from their nature, have at least a touch of vibrato to give the brass tone heart as well as strength. Consider Grimethorpe's excellent solo tenor horn player, for example, who happens to have, actually, a rather wider vibrato than the average of the band. Yet he invests many solo moments with more poetry than the equally excellent symphonic french horn player of the Collegiate Brass; a readily findable example is a few bars into the first movement of the Moorside Suite (incidentally a movement taken, surely, excessively fast by Stobart; Imogen Holst, who almost certainly knew exactly what her father wanted, was considerably more restrained).
Most of the music involved is well known, but it is perhaps worth pointing out that the Ireland Comedy Overture, almost identical with his orchestral London Overture, is probably the original form of that piece. And it is certainly worth pointing out that the Elgar Severn Suite is played, with improved effect, one tone higher in pitch by the Collegiate Brass than by Grimethorpe. This is not caprice, but a serious endeavour to establish the best working brass-band score of the suite. There have been four possible sources to consider, of which the first should obviously be Elgar's own original brass-band score; but this is now lost almost certainly beyond finding (though perhaps surviving to some extent in the organ arrangement by Ivor Atkins known as ''Organ Sonata No. 2 in B flat''; B flat being Elgar's original brass-band key). The remaining three sources are Henry Geehl's touched-up version of the original a tone higher, once considered lost but found again in 1980; the publisher's touched-up version of Henry Geehl, back in the original key, used for the standard printed score; and Elgar's own orchestral version, mensioned above. From a collation of these—and perhaps a few original ideas of his own—Geoffrey Brand made the highly-successful version played here.
Before this begins to look like an American PhD thesis I had better cut to coda with a suggestion that if you are still uncertain which of these two excellent records to buy you could well settle for the CRD: for the well-blended symphonic sound of the (vibrato-less!) Collegiate Brass, and for the improved, Geoffrey Brand score of the Severn Suite they use.'
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