Editorial ~ 2008: December

This month we give our opinions on the points balance of Brass in Concert, the Paganini Syndrome, and praise the mysterious Arthur Wills.

What's the points of Brass in Concert?

The Maxim; ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ may well apply to Brass in Concert.

However, it is wrong.

For a contest that has reinvigorated itself so brilliantly in the past few years with an eye very much to its future, it seems rather strange that it still contains certain aspects that seem to belong to a long defunct age of brass banding.

Like a vintage sports car whose bodywork has been restored to its natural beauty only to find that its engine is still in need of a complete overhaul, it’s the points that are causing the problem. 

To be fair, the premier entertainment contest could not really work without them; but to be fair, in the most literal sense, they have to be just that if the contest is to work as it should. 

If Brass in Concert is too seek excellence and reward in music making and not just light entertainment, then the current points system needs to be overhauled.

Having 200 points for music and 60 for entertainment doesn’t work if the value of each is equal. Making the points system transparently proportionate is surely the answer. 

Until that is done there is no real incentive for the bands to do the same with their programming, and the balance between what we see as musical entertainment and what we hear at Brass in Concert will remain as problematic as ever.

Brass in Concert certainly isn’t broke, but certain parts of it are in need of replacement at its next managerial MOT.

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com        

The Paganini Syndrome

There is a problem with being popular – everyone wants to be associated with you.

For instance, Nelson Mandela must be fed up to the back teeth of irritating pop stars and minor politicians continually using a fleeting visit to him as a rubber stamp on their own passports of self importance. 

Just have a look at the CVs of some people in the banding world and you will see what we mean – more name dropping than could be found if you threw a telephone directory off the top of the Post Office Tower.   

It’s the same with the very best test pieces too, a self delusional syndrome that has effected bands, conductors and even contest organisers of the past 20 years, with a root cause that can be traced back to one test piece in particular – Philip Wilby’s masterful ‘Paganini Variations’.

There have been outbreaks in history before – ‘Vinteritis’ for instance in the 1970s meant that you couldn’t go to an own choice contest anywhere in the world without coming across at last one wretched case causing musical catastrophe.
 
However, none has been more virulent than the ‘Paganini Syndrome’.  Since 1991 (when it was written for the British Open), it has been played to death (literally in many cases) by bands, conductors and contest organisers with the inherent symptoms of misplaced ambition and self glorifying vanity.

The latest case involves Kenneth Downie’s ‘St Magnus’ – a superb work for brass that through its own popularity is in danger of finding itself reduced in stature through overuse.

There is of course nothing wrong with any band or contest organisers wishing to choose any work at a contest, but when the choice is musically inappropriate, it is ultimately the piece itself that suffers the most. 

When really was the last time you heard a truly high quality performance of ‘Paganini’, ‘St Magnus’, ‘Contest Music’ or ‘Cloudcatcher Fells’ for instance, rather than the technically camouflaged, musically strained, dynamically monochrome efforts that are invariably served up to fill missing spaces in a conductors or bands CV?

It may well be nice to be popular, but it can come at one heck of a musical price. 

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com        

In praise of Arthur Wills

Arthur who?

Well what about, Mervyn Burtch or Thomas Wood for that matter?

No?

They are names readily associated with brass bands, but in their way they are equally as important as those of Vinter, Horovitz, Arnold and Maxwell Davies - composers who have integrated the brass band with other musical mediums to produce significant major works.

Unfortunately, Arthur Wills’, ‘The Fenlands’, like Burtch’s ‘Revolt in the Valleys’ and Wood’s, ‘The Rainbow’, all have one thing in common with ‘The Trumpets’, ‘Song of Freedom’, ‘Sampson’, and ‘The Peatcutters’ – you don’t hear them being performed anymore.

There was a time when such major cross over works would have been a cause of banding celebration – but not now.

Today, they remain isolated peculiarities, exotic musical ephemera, grand designs and ideas that to the current MTV generation of brass band performers, are of little musical relevance.

It is a criminal shame.

Why worry about expanding our musical horizons when what we really hold dear to our hearts is the never ending production line of anodyne test pieces?

So if you want to explore a new (although written in 1981) and truly enjoyable musical diversion then get your hands on a CD of ‘The Fenlands’ – a great work for organ and brass band (and still available from Helios recordings). Then sit back and enjoy. 

It may not cement the name of Arthur Wills into the forefront of your mind, but it will give you plenty to think about the next time yet another new bite sized listener friendly, homogenously bland test piece is presented to you at band practice…

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com        

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