Black Dyke

The Ghandi Hall, Headingley Campus, Leeds Metropolitan University
Conductors: Dr Nicholas Childs and Elgar Howarth
Soloist: Richard Marshall
Saturday 5th April

Saturday evening’s Gala Concert by the reigning Yorkshire Champion was musically challenging for the players and audience, but still made for a thoroughly absorbing evening of performance. It was stimulating fare. 

With the concert broadcast over the Internet, the evening opened with music from the pen of Paul Lovatt-Cooper and ‘Walking with Heroes’, showcasing the cornet and trombones in particular. The ‘heroes’ on this occasion were people associated with Leeds Metropolitan University whose successes were showcased on the interactive screen above the band.

World Premiere

The invitation to invite Elgar Howarth as the Artistic Director of the Festival, opened up the opportunity for a new commission from a man held in such high esteem by the band’s principal cornet, Richard Marshall.

The result was a composition of musical reciprocation as Howarth heaped enormous praise on the soloist both before and after his stunning premiere rendition.  Elgar Howarth has known Richard for a long time and the work is very much tailor made for a performer of rich musical gifts.

‘Sonatina for Cornet and Brass Band’ is truly magnificent writing.  With more than a passing appreciation to Ravel’s 1904 ‘Sonatine for Piano’ it calls for enormous concentration of musical thought in a limited time frame.

With the composer conducting, the performance was truly superb. In fact you could run out of superlatives to describe Richard’s playing on this occasion.  It was almost flawless in its execution, so secure and wonderfully delivered and like anyone at the top of their game, he made the most difficult things sound incredibly easy. 

The opening movement is quirky but written to demonstrate the soloist’s strengths, whilst there is a delightful slower movement incorporating a subtle waltz before concluding with tour de force Rondo Toccata. 

You’d have to go a very long way to hear better playing from an instrumentalist on this occasion. It was a superb performance.

Ben Hur

To close the first half, Carl Vincent's ‘Chariot Race'; music that related to the chariot scene from the black and white version of the film, ‘Ben Hur'. (Almost appropriate then given that Charlton Heston, who starred in the multi Oscar laden later epic, died on the same weekend)

The world premiere of the work was given at the European Gala Concert in 2006 where the European Youth Band joined Black Dyke. As with ‘Walking with Heroes’, the audience was engrossed with the images on the screen: the old silent movie accompanied by appropriate music and the audience transported back to a bygone era.

Enigma Variations

The entire second half was devoted to Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’ which has recently been released on CD by the band. 

Each of the variations represents a person (or an animal, in the case of the witty and perky variation depicting his dog) in Elgar's life.

Dr Childs’ reading of a marvellous work certainly excelled; none more so than in the intimate detail that shone through each of the variations. The violent Fourth Variation (WMB) is brief, but was played with so much power and authority, whilst the rapid flow of the music in Variation Seven (Troyte) flowed with such assuredness and Nimrod was played with a real degree of freshness. It was very noticeable how each phrase emerged with flexibility yet retained the sense of bold masculinity in the final musical line.

The encore took the audience back to where it had started the evening, with music from Paul Lovatt-Cooper acknowledging the ‘Champions’ of the University with a nod towards the Olympics this summer. 

With visual images once again accompanying the music, the World Premiere of ‘Rubbing Shoulders with Champions’, brought an outstanding evening to a worthy and enjoyable conclusion.

Malcolm Wood