Welsh champion Tredegar has announced that it will undertake a major new recording project alongside renowned English National Opera Music Director Martyn Brabbins to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

2022 release

'Vaughan Williams on Brass' will be recorded later this year on the Albion Recording label with a release date earmarked for September 2022.

The release marks the return of Martyn Brabbins to the medium in which he first made a youthful musical mark as a euphonium player, whilst the featured soloist in the Vaughan Williams 'Tuba Concerto' (1954), arranged by Phillip Littlemore, will be multi award-winning tubist Ross Knight.

Masterpieces

Speaking about the project, producer Paul Hindmarsh told 4BR: "Vaughan Williams was a late convert to brass bands. He composed the Shakespearian overture 'Henry V' at the age of 60 and it was a further 20 years before, in his 80s, he wrote for brass band again.

In 1953, he was captivated by the expressive sound and musical conviction of the International Staff Band of The Salvation Army and agreed to write something for them.

'Prelude on Three Welsh Hymn Tunes' was the result. Four years later his masterpiece for the medium, 'Variations for Brass Band', was commissioned for the 1957 National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain."

New versions

In addition to these seminal compositions, the recording will also reference the composer's rich legacy of work based on hymn tunes, traditional carols and folk songs, with Phillip Littlemore curating new versions of the military band 'English Folk Song Suite' and 'Sea Songs'.

Paul Hindmarsh added: "In 2008, to mark the 50th anniversary of RVW's death, Phillip and I collaborated on a substantial suite from the evocative music to the 1941 film 'The 49th Parallel'.

I selected the cues to form a symphonic suite and Phillip scored them brilliantly. I also made a brass band version of RVW's lovely organ prelude, 'Rhosymedre', and for this album I have created a second 'Prelude' which I have titled 'The Truth from Above'.

It combines the opening section of the 'Fantasia on Christmas Carols' with fuller harmonisations of this traditional carol from the version for organ and unison voices published later in the Oxford Book of Carols."

Important project

Speaking about its involvement in the project, Tredegar Band's Musical Director Ian Porthouse said: "This important artistic project has been masterminded by Paul Hindmarsh to enable the brass band movement to provide its own stamp of musical identity to the 150th anniversary celebrations of the composer's birth.

The level of interest in, and support for this project underlines the importance of Vaughan Williams to the brass band movement.

We are thrilled to be involved and to link up with Martyn Brabbins for what is sure to be a memorable recording."

The level of interest in, and support for this project underlines the importance of Vaughan Williams to the brass band movementTredegar MD, Ian Porthouse

Support

'Vaughan Williams on Brass' will be recorded under the direction of Ian Porthouse and Martyn Brabbins at the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea in December and is made possible by the generous support of The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust, and Lord and Lady Kinnock, with additional funding from Timbercroft Publishing, PHM Publishing and Buffet-Crampon.

Thanks are due also to publishers Faber Music Ltd. and Stainer & Bell Ltd. for supplying performing material.

Vaughan Williams on Brass is scheduled for release in September 2022 on the Albion Records label.