2010 Norwegian Brass Band Championships

There was drama, excitement and controversy by the bucketful in Bergen this year - so it's a pity these highlights only recall some of them...

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Featuring: Highlights of various performances
Doyen Recordings: (Double CD) CD272
Total Playing Time: 58.58 & 67.36

For those people seeking drama, colour, excitement and plenty of great brass band playing every February, there is no better place to go than the Norwegian National Championships held at Bergen’s wonderful Grieg Hall.

This year a record 75 bands competed in the 32nd running of an event that has become a byword for innovative excellence.

Controversy

This year it also became a byword for a touch of good old fashioned controversy too – something this release one suspects, will do nothing to put to bed.

These ‘highlights’ would have you believe that the 2010 event was as controversial as the AGM of the Bergen branch of the Women’s Institute.

In reality, at times it was more like the down town chapter of the Sons of Anarchy.

The decision to make all six sections ‘open’ for adjudication this year (a sixth section for debutant bands was held for the first time) was welcomed before the event as a sign that the Norwegians were once again leading contesting into the 21st century.

iPhone

However, by its end, there were quite a few vociferous voices of opposition (although to be fair they were a minority) that felt that the organisers now had the adjudication equivalent in the Elite Section at least, of the latest generation Apple iPhone on their hands: Something that looks the part, but whose primary function doesn’t work too well.

True – the Elite result was a bit of a surprise, although the accusations of bias and historical ‘score settling’ were perhaps as far out as the tuning issues the judges felt marred some of the more ‘fancied’ performances.

If you weren’t there though this recording won’t give you one iota of an idea of the drama that unfolded in the gripping Elite contest over two increasingly exciting days.

Error strewn

True – you get to hear the high octane musical performance from the eventual winners Manger Musikklag on ‘…Dove Descending’, but the addition of a pretty average, error strewn performance from Ila of ‘Trumpet of the Angels’ seems an exercise in ‘box ticking’.

What purpose does it serve other than pay lip service to the band that came 3rd overall? A highlight? Come off it.

Ila came 4th with this performance in the own choice section and third overall, but in reality was never in the hunt for the title. That compelling, totally engrossing battle lay elsewhere.

Why not?

So why not Stavanger’s second placed own choice of ‘Masquerade’, which seemed to have propelled them right back into the overall mix for the neutrals in the hall, or Krohnengen’s impressive ‘Montreux Wind Dances’ which saw them being tipped by many as a potential title winning dark horse?

And why not Eikanger’s thumpingly impressive, but by no means perfect, own choice selection of ‘Titan’s Progress’ – the performance that found so much favour in the hall, but not with the three adjudicators John Wallace, Maurice Hamers and Torodd Wigum?

Their winning performance of ‘Sketches from Nowhere’ certainly shows a band on tip top form, so why did their ‘Titan’ end up in sixth place meaning they missed out on the overall title (a third in a row) by the narrowest of margins?

Even iPhones are not perfect as Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs recently confessed to – but brass band adjudicators?

Cop out?

This is where the real, hardcore controversial contest highlight of the entire weekend lay – and we don’t get to hear it.

So are these Elite selections are a bit of a cop out – especially as the excellent sleeve notes by Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, obliquely and skilfully stoke the still hot embers of the ‘open’ debate – and the way it may, or may not have, affected the contest?

‘Highlights’? The informed listener may well be left open minded on that one.

Incidentals

As much as there is to enjoy in Sandefjord’s excellent ‘Eden’ in taking the First Section title under Dave Roberts (in a performance that would have pushed his own band for a podium slot at the recent English Nationals), Orskog’s lyrical ‘Essence of Time’, Bjorsvik’s cracking ‘Partita’ and Fla’s spirited ‘Dimensions’ in winning the Fourth, these are incidentals.

However, the enthusiasm shown in Seim Musikklag’s winning performance in the new ‘Open Class’ holds rich promise of as yet untapped brass band potential still left to be found and encouraged.

As for the decision to fill the last 13 minutes or so of the double CD release with a pretty average sixth placed Second Section performance of ‘Norwegian Landscapes’ by Flesland Musikklag?

Picking a new composition to highlight is to be applauded, but the reasons behind its inclusion seem misplaced. And what was the other commissioned work used in the same contest as stated? Beats me.  Another boxed ticked perhaps?

Opportunity missed

There is always so much to enjoy at the Norwegian Championships, but this recording (as good as it is put together) is a disappointment, an opportunity missed to provide the listener with the real ‘highlights’ (good, bad or controversial) that provided its exhilarating contesting life blood this year.

One thing the Norwegian National Championships can never be accused of is being boring. This recording really should have shown that too.

Iwan Fox

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