Euro Blog
Friday 30th April:

The meniscus on the old temperature gauge continued to rise throughout the day at the Brucknerhaus Hall yesterday – and it wasn’t just hot and sticky for the lucky few Linz locals who took the opportunity to sunbathe on the banks of the Danube.

Bubble and simmer

Things started to bubble and simmer nicely right from the word go, with some fruity old opinions being aired at the EBBA Brass Band Conference, after an interesting talk given by the Regional Culture Minister about how the arts and music in particular are funded in the Upper Austria region.

And guess what – the credit crunch is even hitting a well off place like this, with proposed 10-15% budget cuts over the next three years.

Won't starve

However, unlike the UK (and parts of Scotland in particular), according to the urbane Dr Reinhard Mattes, that will take funding for the various music schools and colleges back to 2005 levels. ‘We didn’t starve then, so we are able to manage,” he said with a touch of black humour.

The Scots may not be so lucky.

Gas turned up

Then someone turned the gas up, with EBBA President Ulf Rosenberg presenting the early findings of the organisation’s research into opinions on the pros and cons of open and closed adjudication.

As expected views varied – although the initial ‘opinion poll’ of the 135 respondents (bands, adjudicators, conductors) seemed overwhelmingly in favour of keeping things well and truly closed (86% -14% in fact).

the press were being fed stories of more ‘full house’ signs being posted up here than could be found in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, a couple of Millennia ago4BR

No hung parliament

As opinion polls go it may well have been the type of result political spin merchants would die for – (no hung parliament here it seems), but even Gordon Brown would have been encouraged by the 14% in favour of opening things out – with Steven Mead and the 4BR Editor (and a few more besides) doing their best to keep the Red Flag of innovative progress flying.

As with most opinion polls however, Ulf stressed that the result didn’t mean that it will signal a firm policy commitment to keep things ‘closed’ forever (the man would make a great politician) – but it would appear that for the next couple of years at least, the age old tradition will remain in place.

Von Trapps

Then everyone got stewed nicely at the Opening Ceremony – which as is the norm these days at Euro events, went on far too long for its own good.

Pretty dancers accompanied what appeared to be the 2010 version of the Von Trapp family as they gave a delightful performance of traditional music, whilst Steven Mead and Sound Inn Brass delivered a neat touch of Mozart’s greatest hits.

There were of course the obligatory long and worthy speeches before the B Section and A Section draws took place in a ceremony that started to sound more and more like it needed Stuart Hall to provide the commentary to alleviate the seriousness of it all.

Carry On

By the time the assorted hacks and scribes had baked like ripening glass house tomatoes at the surprisingly sparsely attended EBBA Press Conference, there was just enough time to hear the two composer’s talks about their works.

Albin Zaininger spoke about ‘Up My Alley’ without once making it sound as if it was a double entendre tag line from a ‘Carry On’ film, whilst Thomas Doss then shed light on the mysteries of ‘Spiriti’ – without ever sounding if he was auditioning to be the Austrian version of Derek Ancora.

Economical with the truth

All that was left was to round off a long day by sitting and listening to all 10 bands in the Championship Section, and wonder whether or not the Austrian organisers had been more than a little ‘economical with the truth’ to coin a well used political phrase.

They have had their fair share of deniers over the years, but not even that old Nazi Kurt Waldheim (who went onto become head of the United Nations) could have adequately explained why the hall was never full (even for the home favourites of Oberosterreich), when for the past few months the press were being fed stories of more ‘full house’ signs being posted up here than could be found in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, a couple of Millennia ago.

90%

Still, the place did fill up to nearly 90% capacity by the time the big boys had finally played and most people left to enjoy a cooling glass of the local beer in the nearby hotels.

We were one of them, and with the likes of Black Dyke, Cory, Oberosterreich and Eikanger all on red hot form on the day, we all needed a few throat ticklers to help us wind down.

All this and it is likely to get even hotter on Saturday.