Buy As You View Band

2007 RNCM Festival of Brass
Conductor: Dr Robert Childs
Sunday 28th January

Of all the programmes at this year's Festival of Brass, BAYV gave us a diversity of repertoire that was as intriguing as it was varied.

The central thread of Elgar, Eric Ball and Robert Simpson were all there, neatly nestling alongside Gareth Wood's new vehicle for the musicianship of Owen Farr in the form of his 'Concerto for Tenor Horn', a curiosity in David Bedford's 'Requiem' and the work that the band premiered to spectacular effect at last year's European Championships, Kenneth Downie's 'The Promised Land'.

Eric Ball's love for the music of Elgar was there until the very end of his life when he produced his landmark transcription of the complete 'Enigma Variations'. His arrangement of Elgar's concert overture 'Froissart' also appeared in Ball's latter years and his unquenchable affection for the music can be clearly felt in the warmth of his arrangement. It's certainly no Sunday afternoon walk in the park for the players though and as with all of Elgar's work it takes a conductor of skill to extract the character, swagger and deceptively subtle nuances of the music.

In his typically understated way Robert Childs proved more than the master of the task with the band capturing the sweep of the music in impressive fashion. As Paul Hindmarsh pointed out in his introduction, the cornets in particular have some pretty intricate parts to deal with although there was no sign of labour in the front row (boosted to five as had been Leyland earlier in the day) demonstrating clarity of the highest order throughout. The individual star though was Michelle Ibbotson, in stunning form and once again demonstrating why she is one of the foremost soprano players in the world today.                

BAYV's memorable performance of John Pickard's gargantuan 'Gaia Symphony' at last year's Festival of Brass was something that those present will never forget. Pickard completed the 'Gaia Symphony' during his tenure as the band's composer in residence and one of the focal points of the band's concert this year was the 'Concerto for Tenor Horn' by Gareth Wood, the man who stepped into the shoes vacated by Pickard and is now working on the piece that will be the band's own choice work for this year's European Championships. Ironically Wood's reputation was tarnished for some by the piece he provided as the set test for the same contest of 1992 in Cardiff, 'Five Blooms in a Welsh Garden' and as a result we reckon there will be no shortage of interest in his efforts for this year's contest.  

Written with the sound of Owen Farr very much in mind Wood ‘s 'Concerto' explores musical material ranging from an introspective opening to virtuosic vigour in the latter stages of the movement and an almost calypso feel to the exuberantly playful finale. It is the substantial central slow movement that is the core of the piece though. There is music of real beauty here with sonorous chordal writing for the band framing a more dynamic central section. There are few practitioners of the tenor horn that can fill a concert hall with sound in the way that Owen Farr can and for the duration of the work he simply did not put a foot wrong, whether it be in the technical challenges of the outer movements or the lyricism of the adagio. Put simply, it was just stunning horn playing.

We have a sneaky feeling that if Eric Ball was looking over the Haden Freeman Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon he would have given a nod of approval to BAYV's performance of 'High Peak'. This was a reading that breathed new life into a piece that is not heard too often these days and glowed throughout with a warmth and humanity that was in stark contrast to Robert Simpson's 'Volcano', the work that opened the second half of the concert.

The sheer power of Simpson's piece, a very different power to that of 'Energy', played the previous evening by the Foden's Richardson Band, still has the ability to pin you back in your seat. After all these years it is also still very difficult music to pull off and for us it was the one piece in BAYV's concert that didn't quite hang together as a complete performance, despite excellent individual contributions from all concerned.

David Bedford's 'Requiem' will be familiar to anyone who owns the band's 'Wildfire' CD and represents the composer's only excursion into brass band music from his more often heard music for wind band. In his younger years Bedford was associated with the avant garde before a stylistic shift took him towards pop music and minimalism. As Paul Hindmarsh mentioned, he became well known as the orchestrator of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' amongst many other orchestrations for pop songs too numerous to mention.

The influence of pop music and minimalism can still be felt in the 'Requiem', with repeated rhythmic figures and an approachable brand of melody and harmony that give the work a quite different feeling to anything else performed during the festival. Despite this it still comes across as a peculiarly personal response to the feelings of guilt felt by the composer at his impatience in a traffic jam, only to find later that the accident causing the chaos had resulted in the death of a young girl.

The poignancy of the central section of the piece is the emotional heart of the music but the colourfully scored urgency of the outer sections (who would have thought that suspended plant pots could be so effective!?) proved a feast for BAYV's percussion section who responded in dynamic fashion.

And so to the finale that was to prove to be the performance of the day. Kenneth Downie's 'The Promised Land' served the band well in Belfast last year when it won the own choice section of the European's for them and after a stamina sapping concert on this scale it was incredible that the band managed to show not one sign of tiring in a piece that is a smack in the chops in its own right. But this is the band that gave us John Pickard's 'Gaia Symphony' in its sixty minute entirety at last year's festival and the performance here was nothing short of magisterial in its impact.

As Robert Childs was keen to mention at the outset, 'The Promised Land' is a piece that calls for a band of soloists and in this respect BAYV are particularly well blessed. But it was the sheer musicality and scintillating accuracy of the playing that had the audience on the edges of their seats. Little wonder that the composer took to the stage at the end beaming gratitude.

It would have been hard to follow this had it not been for the fact that Bob Childs had a trump card to play for the encore. The band's recent CD featuring the 'Lighter Side of Elgar Howarth' proved to be one of the releases of 2006 and as the players turned in a terrific performance of 'Hunting the Hare' one Mr W. Hogarth Lear was present in the audience to acknowledge the applause and nod his approval.

Christopher Thomas

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