BRITISH WIND MUSIC SINCE 1981 - PART 2

THE SECOND DECADE - CONSOLIDATION

By 1991 a new repertoire of British wind music had been established by BASBWE. At a College interview, a would-be student responded in answer to a question about the sort of music his school wind band played “Oh, we play the usual classics, Holst and Woolfenden.” Happily for the movement, despite the problems inherent in printing music, many publishers responded to the new needs of bands, and more recently new computer technology has helped composers considerably.

PUBLISHING IN THE LAST DECADE

With the introduction of computerised music programmes like Finale and Sibelius, publishing has undergone a revolution, but even before these new publishing initiatives were launched by R. Smith, (now G. and M. Brand), Studio Music and Novello (now Music Sales); other series from Chester and Schirmer were less successful, and wind orchestra publishing by traditional firms such as OUP and Boosey & Hawkes continued fitfully, mainly in the USA, since the UK market is limited. As with brass bands, wind bands prefer to purchase music rather than hiring, and luckily not only were most of the new commissions put on sale, but Studio Music launched the old Chappell Journal as a reprint series. More recently still, other firms have come into the market, such as Faber, Maecenas, Samuel King, Da Capo, Bandleader, CMA and Denis Wick.

The last few years have seen an increase in self-publishing, with composers such as the late Adrian Cruft, Stephen Dodgson, Michael Short, Peter Graham, Keith Amos and Bruce Fraser, building considerable repertoire lists under their own imprint. A number of commissions, self-published in the seventies and eighties, merit a more regular place in the repertoire. Adrian Cruft was assiduous in his support of the symphonic wind band, as is Stephen Dodgson, formerly chairman of the National Youth Wind Orchestra, whose The Eagle (1976) and a very successful work for solo clarinet and band, Capriccio Concertante (1984) are perhaps his most substantial works. Many of his works are now published by Denis Wick, who has also entered the field with works by Alun Hoddinott and a series of his own fine arrangements of standard orchestral repertoire.

WASBE/BASBWE CONFERENCE 1991

BASBWE’s first decade culminated in the 1991 joint WASBE/BASBWE Conference. Marred by the outbreak of the Gulf War, which frightened off many of the American bands, groups still came from Europe, Japan, Australia and Texas, and the repertoire of over 140 works ranged through four centuries, from Gabrieli and Schütz to world premieres. Berkshire commissioned a sparkling new non-Shakespearean work from Guy Woolfenden, Mockbeggar Variations (1991, Ariel) and also premiered an excellent Trumpet Concerto (1991, AXA) by the Hungarian composer, Istvan Lendvay.

Of other works commissioned in connection with the 1991 Conference, Canyons (1991, Novello) by John McCabe, commissioned jointly by Eastman and London’s Guildhall, is a striking evocation of the Grand Canyon, certainly accessible by a good youth band, while Patterson’s The Mighty Voice, (1991, Studio Music) written for Youth Bands, should become equally successful now it is revised. Bennett contributed The Four Seasons (1991, Novello), premiered at the Cheltenham Festival, and two large-scale ensemble works received workshop performances.

Nicholas Maw’s American Games (1991 Faber) was premiered the following week at the BBC Proms, and won the 1991 Sudler Award in Chicago. It is an energetic virtuoso romp through American life, with the razzmatazz of the marching bands contrasted with the simple piety of traditional American values. Equally appealing was the new CBDNA Consortium commission by Robin Holloway, Entrance; Carousing; Embarcation (1991 Boosey and Hawkes), presented in a workshop by Jerry Junkin and the University of Texas at Austin Wind Band. This is a sprawling Mahlerian epic, scored for a fairly normal wind ensemble except for the clarinets, of which 8 Bb are required, together with 2 bass, contra alto and contra bass. A recording is now available on 5600-MCD.

TRENDS IN BRITISH MUSIC

Perhaps two strands can be perceived in the “symphonic” repertoire. On the one hand there are works cast in a more populist mould, equally suited to performance either with solo players or by a larger, perhaps less experienced, Symphonic Band. Some of these are pastiche, (Malcolm Binney’s Charivari (1981, Maecenas), Dalby’s A Plain Man’s Hammer (1984, Novello), Horovitz’ Bacchus on Blue Ridge and Fête Galante, Orr’s John Gay Suite, Woolfenden’s Gallimaufry and Illyrian Dances, Muldowney’s 1984 (ms) and Dance Suite (1996, Ariel) generally following European rather than American models. On the other hand, composers developed traditional forms and language, Dodgson’s Concertante Capriccioso, Cruft’s Overture Tamburlaine (1962, Joad Press), Gregson’s Tuba Concerto and Festivo, Iain Hamilton’s witty Overture 1912 (1958, Presser), and Patterson’s The Mighty Voice (1991, Studio) but, it might be chauvinistically claimed, often with a refreshing vigour and spontaneity not always present in some of the formulaic music of their American contemporaries.

Meanwhile a new generation of composers has emerged, writing Gebrauchsmusik suitable for either the wind ensemble concept or the symphonic, which, like so much earlier British music, entertains the audience while challenging the player, whether conservatoire or professional, student or amateur. Paul Hart has three works full of brio and gusto in Journey and Celebration (1989, R Smith), Cartoon (1990, R Smith), and Circus Ring (1995, G & M Brand). Nigel Hess has responded to commissions from the National Youth Wind Orchestra and others with five works including East Coast Pictures (1985, Faber), Global Variations (1990, Faber) and Stephenson’s Rocket (1992, Faber).

HUDDERSFIELD CONSORTIA

Typical of the emerging younger group is Martin Ellerby, whose Paris Sketches (1994, Maecenas), a four-movement homage to Parisian composers such as Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Satie and Berlioz, was commissioned by a consortium of schools put together by Richard Jones for the 1994 Huddersfield Conference, wonderfully scored filmic music, premiered by the first BASBWE Honours Band conducted by Clark Rundell.

The other Huddersfield commission was Gary Carpenter’s slightly over scored rock-based Flying God Suite (1994, Camden) published by another publishing newcomer, Camden Music. Carpenter’s earlier commission by the NYWOGB, Theatre Fountains, (1991, Camden) is more successful should be revived; his Eine Kleine Snookerspiel (Camden) is a brilliant Harmonie spoof for wind octet. His most recent work was written for the Sunderland Festival of 1997, Sunderland Lasses, Wearside Lads, again perhaps a little heavy handed in its treatment of the material.

MARTIN ELLERBY

Ellerby’s earliest essay for wind, the evocative Tuba Concerto (1988, Maecenas), has been followed by Dona Nobis Pacem (1995, Maecenas) a heartfelt elegy for the heroes of the second World War, premiered at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. More ambitious is the Symphony (1997, Studio), commissioned for the 1997 BASBWE Conference by Kent Youth Wind Orchestra, and a wind version of his Euphonium Concerto (1996, Studio), while his Venetian Spells (1997 Studio) recalls the pastiche qualities of Paris Sketches, evoking the music of Gabrieli, Vivaldi and other Italian masters with telling use of both harp and harpsichord. New World Dances (1998, Studio) is a transcription of a brass band original, designed for a youth band tour of USA and readily accessible. More recently there seems to have been a divergence between his more serious works, Meditations and Via Crucis, and the lighter side which includes the Clarinet Concerto and the educational piece The Big Easy Suite. His latest commission is for Her Majesty’s Band of the Coldstream Guards and is entitled The Cries of London, to be premiered in early 2005. He is now editor for Studio Music.

METROPOLIS

RNCM WIND ORCHESTRA

Conductors Clark Rundell and Timothy Reynish

SERCD 2400

ADAM GORB

His former colleague at London College of Music is Adam Gorb (www.adamgorb.co.uk), whose first work was the exciting and exacting Metropolis (1993, Maecenas), written for the Royal Academy of Music Wind Orchestra, which won the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize in 1984. Since then he has written Bermuda Triangle (1995, Maecenas), a Euphonium Concerto (1997, Maecenas) and a brilliant “post-Bernstein” Overture, Awayday, (1996, Maecenas). His Yiddish Dances, (1998 Maecenas) is a marvellous five-movement work based on the Klezmer tradition, about Grade 4 but requiring an expert Eb player; his most substantial work to date is a concerto for percussion, written for Evelyn Glennie, The Elements (1998, Maecenas), premiered at the Bridgewater Hall on 6th April 1998. Two more elusive works tap a gentler sound-world, Ascent, commissioned by Felix Hauswirth for the lamented Uster Festival, and Towards Nirvana, which begins as a hedonistic whirl, reminiscent of the language of Metropolis, but ends in a Buddhist trance of chanting, recorders, repetitive motifs, dying away to nothing. “Too long and too quiet” was the criticism levelled by one distinguished wind band aficionado! Despite that, it won the award from the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters for the best wind work of 2004.

International Repertoire Volume 2 5342-MCD

Available late 2005

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY WIND ENSEMBLE

He is an essentially practical composer, and his works for school band have a spontaneity and sensitivity rare at this level. I especially enjoy Bridgewater Breeze (Maecenas), five good tunes with teasing quirks of phrasing, orchestration and metre, and Candelight Procession (G&M Brand), both at about Grade 3 level.

He is now Head of Composition and Contemporary Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music, but wears his learning lightly, as demonstrated by a number of charming pieces at Grade 2/3 level. Gorb has often nailed his colours to the mast over “light” music. The hilarious trombone concerto, Downtown Diversions (2001, Maecenas) demonstrates the ease with which he skates near the thin edge of popular cliché without ever falling into that easiest of ruts. In his most recent work he returns to the populist mode of Yiddish Dances; Dances from Crete, (2003, Maecenas) is a four movement rumbustious suite of dances in which vulgar high-spirits and virtuosity are juxtaposed with deeply felt tragic lyricism.

MALCOLM BINNEY

A number of other composers are writing for Maecenas, notably Malcolm Binney its publisher and a conductor. Brilliantly scored, full of wit and vigour, works such as Charivari (1981, Maecenas), Four Character Studies (1988, Maecenas) and Saturnalia (1992, Maecenas) are fun to play and to listen to. Emerald Breeze (1994, Maecenas) is a miniature Straussian tone-poem of some power, Brasser (1997) a rumbustious Overture and Civitas (1997) is a more serious three movement work, reflecting the vigour, courage and rewards of northern life in the Industrial revolution.

The inspiration behind the Maecenas catalogue is Giles Easterbrook, who was responsible also for the development of Novello Wind series in the 80’s. The Series include established masterpieces by Respighi and Saint-Saens, virtuoso works such as Roger Marsh’s Heathcote’s Inferno (1996) and Judith Bingham’s Three American Icons (1997), with movements dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, Lee Harvey Oswald and others. Other contributing composers in the series are Gareth Wood and Geoffrey Poole, both vastly experienced.

Many Maecenas composers have had a specific brief to write easy music in a contemporary idiom which gives players a musical challenge while providing them and their audiences an emotional experience similar to that derived by their colleagues from playing standard orchestral repertoire. Such a work is Bill Connor’s Tails aus dem Voods Viennoise (1992, Maecenas) a masterpiece for Grade 3-4 players, Mahlerian in its sweep and impact. Adam Gorb’s Bridgewater Breeze (1997) is a re-scoring of his Suite for Wind, five very attractive tuneful movements at Grade 3 level. Gareth Wood is another composer with a flair for the good tune and attractive scoring, shown in Three Mexican Pictures (1992 Maecenas) or A Wiltshire Symphony (1997 Maecenas)., or recently in The Cauldron (2003, Maecenas). Malcolm Binney’s latest initiative is to invite Adam Gorb, Fergal Carroll and Gareth Woods to write works at about Grade 2 level, with carefully selected parameters of ranges, keys and difficulty.

TODAY’S DILEMMA - WE CAN’T UNPICK THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

For the more “serious” composers who have responded to commissions, Robin Holloway perhaps sums up the present state of a great deal of British music of today when he writes:

I am trying to write music which, though conversant with most of the revolutionary technical innovations of the last 80 years or so, and by no means turning its back on them, nonetheless keeps a continuity of language and expressive intention with the classics and romantics of the past. 

Composer, Diana Burrell, spoke of her perception of the job of a composer:

Try and find a language which doesn’t disregard everything which has happened in the twentieth century, that does acknowledge Stravinsky and Schoenberg and Boulez, while being simple enough to work for the concert hall, or church, or for young people - the wider community in some way, but which acknowledges that this is where we are - we can’t go back. We can’t unpick the twentieth century.

IMPORTANT STATEMENT

The commissioning programme of the last ten years has deliberately encouraged leading British composers who might subscribe to this creed to write for wind. One of the strongest works is a commission for Glasgow from the Scottish composer, James Macmillan, whose Sowetan Spring (1990, Boosey) has been recorded professionally by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, but has received relatively few performances. Similar neglect has befallen other more “serious” works such as John Casken’s Distant Variations for Saxophone Quartet and Wind (1997, Schott), Anthony Gilbert’s Dream Carousels (1989, Schott), Edward Harper’s Double Variations for oboe, bassoon and ensemble (1989, OUP) and Thea Musgrave’s Journey through a Japanese Landscape (1993/Novello), a Marimba Concerto, dedicated to Evelyn Glennie. 

Almost more exciting, in the struggle to legitimise the medium, is the involvement of professional orchestras in commissioning composers for their wind, brass and percussion section. Orchestras such as the Liverpool Philharmonic with Gregson’s Celebration (1991, Maecenas), The London Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas with Quatrain (1989, Faber) by Colin Matthews, and the BBC Symphony with Birtwistle’s Panic (1995, Booseys) have all added major works to the professional repertoire. Two other works rarely performed are Holloway’s Entrance; Carousing; Embarcation (1997, Boosey) and Michael Tippet's Triumph (Schott), both commissioned by American Universities. Together with Sallinen's Palace Rhapsody (1997), the three works by Richard Rodney Bennett and Irwin Bazelon’s Midnight Music (1991, Novello), this represents a body of music for wind ensemble which can be considered an important statement by leading British publishers and composers.

SIR MICHAEL TIPPETT

2 January 1905 - 8 January 1998

We all know that the big public is extremely conservative and is willing to ring the changes on a few beloved works till the end of time, and that our concert life, through the taste of this public, suffers from a kind of inertia of sensibility, that seems to want no musical experience whatever beyond what it already knows.....Surely the matter is that the very big public masses together in a kind of dead passion of mediocrity, and that this blanket of mediocrity is deeply offended by any living passion of the unusual, the rare, the rich, the exuberant, the heroic and the aristocratic in art.

It was typical of Michael Tippett, the doyen of British composers, to have responded enthusiastically at the age of eighty-seven to a wind ensemble commission from an American Consortium led by Frank Battisti . Triumph, (1992, Schott) based on was described by his close colleague and collaborator Merion Bowen, as a Paraphrase after the manner of Liszt. 

Tippett also sanctioned use of the first movement of his Concerto for Orchestra to be played as a separate wind ensemble piece, entitled Mosaic (1963, Schott). A brilliant tour de force for orchestral wind, it is in essence a concertante work for the wind, brass and orchestral soloists of the orchestra, with important metric relationships reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments or Magnus Lindberg’s Gran Duo.

THE PROFESSIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA & WIND ENSEMBLE

Despite the energy in commissioning and the virtuosity of performance of our major wind ensembles and orchestras, the movement is essentially amateur. A new work will receive multiple performances if, to echo Sir Simon Rattle, it does not “frighten the horses”. Despite the pressures of box-office, the professional symphony orchestras are far more imaginative in their treatment of a new work. For the Millennium, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra celebrated with a commission from Magnus Lindberg. 

Gran Duo (2000, Boosey & Hawkes) has had, before 2005, over forty performances from Symphony Orchestras worldwide, though only four wind ensembles essayed it, the US Marine Band, the Stockholm Wind Symphony, New England Conservatory and the University of Kentucky at Lexington. When Sir Simon took over as musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic, he programmed Gran Duo in the first season, together with another Rattle commission, Heiner Goebbel’s extraordinary Aus einem Tagebuch (From a Diary), for wind, brass, percussion, double basses and sampler, and he then toured it across the USA.

PROFESSIONAL RECORDINGS

A further crucial element in the development of wind music in the UK and elsewhere has been the enormous growth of availability of professional produced compact discs. Geoffrey Brand and Stan Kitchen have both made recordings of their publications using professional players from the London free-lance scene and from the services, while the Royal Northern College of Music has recorded wind works of Richard Rodney Bennett, David Bedford, Edward Gregson and Guy Woolfenden for Doyen, works by Ellerby, Gorb, Poole and Clarke for Serendipity. Their two Grainger discs in the Chandos complete Grainger series met with critical acclaim, and have led to recordings of the works of Holst and Vaughan Williams, of German, French, Russian and Nordic classics, and most recently of concert dance music.

CBDNA COMMISSIONING CONSORTIA

The setting up of international and national commissioning consortia is a welcome development at university, professional and at school level; here perhaps WASBE has a growing role to play. A collaboration between BASBWE, the RNCM and CBDNA has resulted in a commission from the distinguished Finnish composer, Aulis Sallinen (born 1930) for the 1997 Cheltenham International festival, The Palace Rhapsody, (1997, Novello/Music Sales), and first performances were given in USA, Finland, Sweden and Norway. This is an elusive work, based on the composer’s opera The Palace, itself drawn from a book about Haille Selassie with elements of Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, often simple and heart rending, frequently ironic and teasing. A recording is now available on 5600 – MCD while a professional CD is imminent in a Sallinen series.

A welcome move towards international commissioning consortia at school level began in Yorkshire with Richard Jones, who set up commissions from Adam Gorb, his Euphonium Concerto, and from New Zealander Christopher Marshall, Aue, with funding from and premières in high schools and colleges in UK, USA, Australia and Canada.

BASBWE EDUCATIONAL TRUST

A vital component in the development of commissioning is the work of the BASBWE Educational Trust under Charles Hine; in 1993 he set up the first Commissioning Consortium with the Trust partnered by British conservatoires and universities. The work was the marimba concerto Journey through a Japanese Landscape (1994, Novello) from Thea Musgrave, and other works have followed from Robert Saxton whose Ring, Time (1994, Chesters) is partially inspired by the music of Tippett, and Dominic Muldowney, with Dance Suite (1996, Ariel). More recent works have been written by John Woolrich, Elena Firsova and Ilona Sekacs. Help has also been given to the Leeds Festival for commissions from David Bedford Susato Variations (1993, Novello) and Alan Bullard’s Heritage (1993, Colne).

D**N GOOD CONTEMPORARY BRITISH MUSIC

Angus Duke, writing in the British Music Society Journal, reckoned that his first BASBWE Conference was a revelation.  There are still composers who are conserving and rejuvenating the music of uplifting melody, springing rhythms, strength and joy. 

The 1996 Conference gave a survey of fourteen years of BASBWE Commissioning policy. As Angus Duke reports there were inevitably some “duds”, longueurs and “heavy” pieces, but most of the items performed, I at least want to hear again. It seems as if the medium itself induces a spring in the step, and a sense of robust appreciation of life such as we have seldom heard since the VW and Holst wind band suites.

It is imperative that as many bands and orchestras as possible commission works at all levels on a regular basis, and play them regularly. For the 1997 BASBWE Conference at Canterbury, Brendon le Page encouraged this with a series of high-profile premieres. 

Perhaps the outstanding premiere was Philip Sparke's A Lindisfarne Rhapsody (1997, Studio) for Flute and Wind Orchestra, commissioned by Kenneth Bell, principal flute of the Central Band of the RAF in memory and celebration of his parents. The RAF programme also included two striking new pieces, David Bedford's Canons and Cadenzas (1997, G & M Brand) commissioned by Frederick Fennell for the Kosei Orchestra, and a commission from Philip Sparke by the United States Air Force Band, Dance Movements (1996, Studio), which later in the year won the Sudler Award in Chicago.

Other works premiered at Canterbury include Gaudeamus (1997, Bandleader) by Michael Short, Symphony for Winds (1997, Studio) by Martin Ellerby, Abigail’s Video Diary (1997) by Robert Godman and Prayer and Eastern Dance (1997) by Duncan Stubbs, written with the intention of being playable by the average community/school band while providing interesting rhythmic demands for more advanced players.

In 1998 I commissioned for the Manchester BASBWE Conference commissioned a series of easier works at Grade 3 & 4 from Michael Ball, Martin Ellerby, Tim Ewers, Edward Gregson, Adam Gorb, Philip Wilby, Guy Woolfenden and others; this is the real challenge for composers, to write works which do not patronise school bands or less gifted amateurs, and which are musically interesting and technically not too difficult.

With less money available from the Arts Council and regional associations, we have turned increasingly in recent years towards the idea of consortia, with the exciting development that a work can then be assured of more than one premiere. Geoffrey Reed and the Sefton Music Service commissioned one such splendid work in Edwin Roxburgh's Time's Harvest (2001 Maecenas) a work written for the technical requirements of High School Band, but with the musical demands of a commission for the London Sinfonietta. 

NOW AVAILABLE:

International Repertoire Volume 3 5600-MCD

ROYAL COLLEGE OF MUSIC

Roxburgh’s work is included in volume 3 of my international Repertoire series, along with works by Sallinen, Casken and Holloway mentioned above, and Judith Bingham’s heartfelt Bright Spirit (2002 Maecenas). This is an elegy without the sentimentality that often clouds such pieces, premiered and co-commissioned by Baylor University in Texas.

Her first work for wind ensemble was Three American Icons 1997, Maecenas), a kind of French Suite with a Rondeau for Marilyn Monroe, and graphic depiction of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and of the infamous Grassy Knoll.

CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH MUSIC

Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra, conducted by Timothy Reynish on DOYCD 127

THE NEW MILLENNIUM - BASBWE/RNCM INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS

In 2001, my connection with the RNCM was severed, and my colleague Clark Rundell took over the artistic direction of the annual International Festival and BASBWE Conference. To chart the development of British wind music of the past four years, it is convenient to trace the programming under Clark. In 2002, in his first message to the delegates, Clark encouraged everyone to look out for new works by Tom Moss, Steve McNeff, Cecilia McDowell, Robert Hinchliffe, Kit Turnbull, Paul Hart, Darrol Barry, Bruce Fraser, Tim Garland, Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, Jukka-Pekka Lehto, Fergal Carroll, Andy Scott, David Bedford, Stephen Montague, Joseph Horovitz, Mark Slater, Jonathan Booty, Ken Hesketh, Martin Ellerby, Nigel Clarke, John Reeman, Derek Bourgeois, Gareth Wood and Dave Smith, an extraordinary range of twenty-five new works.

Brendon Le Page reviewed the conference for WINDS and found it a mixed experience. He enthused about Sallinen’s brooding Chorali (though I much prefer the irony and crazy mix of styles of the same composer’s Palace Rhapsody), he enjoyed Jack Stamp’s Copland-esque Four Maryland Songs, Wilby’s Catcher of Shadows, Paul Hart’s “dreamy, meandering” Sunrise for solo horn, McNeff’s Ghosts (which he felt needed pictures) and Wasteland Wind Music 11 as well as the wind version of Derek Bourgeois’ Blitz and Fergal Carroll’s Winter Dances, with its “Riverdance” style finale, attractive and sufficiently new-sounding to be given more performances. From the RAF Central Band he enjoyed the virtuosity of Martin Ellerby’s Euphonium Concerto and he thought that Kenneth Hesketh’s A Festive Overture and Philip Sparke’s Four Norfolk Dances deserved further hearings.

KENNETH HESKETH & STEPHEN MCNEFF

Two composers with distinctive voices have emerged in the past few years. Kenneth Hesketh at first wrote under a pseudonym, preferring to keep his wind music and his "serious" music separate. His Masque (2001 Faber) is an energetic overture, full of good tunes and exciting scoring, while an earlier work, Danseries, (2000 Faber) is a four-movement work derived from Playford's Dancing Masters Tunes of the 17th century. Diaghilev Dances (2003 Faber) is a wonderful homage to the impressionistic ballets of the early 20th century, early Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel, marvellously scored with great solo parts especially for subsidiary woodwind instruments. His Clouds of Unknowing (2004, Schotts) still awaits a premiere; it is a marvellously scored work, with demanding parts for tuned percussion, piano, celeste and harp, a rich soundworld unique in the wind ensemble medium. Three other works emerged during 2004, all published by Faber; Internal Ride was commissioned by the University of St. Thomas, Whirligigg and a Flute Concerto; his next work is Vrajanka for school ensembles.

Stephen McNeff comes to the wind band from a predominantly theatrical background, and has written three works for the RNCM, Wasteland Music 1 (2000), Wasteland Music 2 (2001) and Ghosts (2001), all published by Maecenas, and all quirky, fun to play and to listen to. Ghosts is a kind of Enigma Variations for wind ensemble, in that it is a set of variations each with a ghost story as a title. One added advantage is that you can play as many or as few of the movements as you like.

STEPHEN MCNEFF

In preparation

There are also two shorter, one movement works, Rant and Moving Parts, and most recently McNeff has written 'The Winged Lion', a Venice fantasy which - far from being a travelogue - plays on the darker side of the watery city in its five movements with titles like Carnevale and Bocca di Leone.  He is currently completing a concerto for clarinet and wind orchestra (commissioned by a consortium of bands for Linda Merrick) which will be heard in London, Warrington and Finland.

COMMUNITY WIND PROGRAMMES AT THEIR BEST

It is satisfying to find RNCM alumni from the last two decades now out there influencing programming in school and community bands. Tim Redmond has programmed Bennett’s Morning Music in a couple of symphony orchestra concerts, while in 2003, two other influential conductors brought interesting programmes to conference. Keiron Anderson’s Yorkshire Wind Orchestra gave a programme of which any community orchestra would be proud, Phil Littlemore’s extremely effective version of Jonathan Dove’s Ringing Isle (Faber), Philip Wilby’s Dawn Flight (G&M Brand), Judith Bingham’s tricky Three American Icons (Maecenas) and Nigel Clarke’s clarinet concerto Battles and Chants (Studio). Mark Heron’s programme with Lancashire Symphonic Wind Orchestra was perhaps more international and even more intriguing, starting with the two little pieces by Scarlatti arranged Shostakovich (Sikorski), ending with the Martinu Cello Concerto, with an extraordinarily evocative work in the middle, Magnum Ignotum by Kancheli, a montage of bells, Russian Orthodox chant with wind ensemble.

In 2003 also, Birmingham Conservatoire under Guy Woolfenden and Eric Hinton brought a fascinating programme of British music; Guy’s own Celebration opened energetically and cheerfully, and introduced Martin Ellerby’s Meditation, a more introspective serious work than we are used to hearing from this composer. Based loosely on The Seven Last Words of Haydn, Ellerby creates some dramatic effects and singing lines, as ever beautifully scored. Philip Wilbys’s Trumpet Concerto is more acerbic in its wit and brilliance, a very useful addition to the repertoire for this instrument.

PANIC SCANDAL

The 2003 Conference RNCM Concert conducted by Clark Rundell and Frank Battisti was more international, with two works commissioned by the BBC for its own Symphony Orchestra, one commissioned by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, one by the San Francisco Symphony and one to celebrate Frank Battisti’s 70th birthday.

The concert began with Mark-Anthony Turnage’s A Quick Blast, (Schott) an acerbic exciting commission for the Cheltenham Festival of 2000, it ended with the scandalous commission for the 1955 Last Night of the Proms, Panic by Harrison Birtwistle (Boosey & Hawkes) for solo saxophone and kit percussion, receiving here a performance marked with much greater clarity than its premiere in that cavernous Royal Albert Hall. One work new for UK audiences was the extraordinary Towards Nirvana of Adam Gorb.

Perhaps the 2004 Conference did not have quite the excitement of some past occasions, not too many special commissions or major world premieres. However, there were a few sound works by old and new composers. It was good to hear Michael Ball’s voice again in A Cambrian Suite, an arrangement of a slightly old-fashioned brass band fantasy on Welsh tunes, and also good to hear a couple of movements from Ernest Tomlinson’s Suite of English Dances, (Novello/Studio) arranged by the composer from the orchestral version, six thumping good settings of great tunes from the 17th century. It was good to have new works from a number of experienced pens, or computers; among these were Peter Graham’s Call of the Cossacks (Gramercy), Nigel Clarke’s Mata Hari (Studio) and his tour de force for Euphonium City in the Sea, (Studio) while Philip Sparke has added a Clarinet Concerto (Anglo) to his sensitive flute concerto, Lindisfarne Rhapsody.

Among the newer voices, the Irish composer Fergal Carroll, whose Winter Dances (2002, Maecenas) had been very successful as an amateur band commission, achieved in his sensitive Song of Lir (Maecenas) achieves what is really difficult, a major extended 7 minute tone poem for Grade 3 band. Unfortunately another major work for school band by David Smith could not be performed, but his Fractures (2002, Maecenas) was a very useful addition to the school band repertoire. Stephen McNeff was represented by Venice, the Winged Lion, (Maecenas), another fine tone poem by this exciting composer. A major work for schools by an under-rated European composer, Marco Pütz, received its UK premiere at the Conference; Dance Sequence (2003, Maecenas) was commissioned by a WASBE international consortium set up by Richard Jones of Yorkshire and Marc Crompton of Vancouver.

The extraordinary growth of repertoire at all levels in United Kingdom in the past two decades is due only partly to the lead taken by the Royal Northern College of Music and BASBWE. As in Europe, America and the Far East, many conductors are actively engaged in commissioning music of integrity, but such is the profession that news of such works gets easily buried, unless the work is clearly commercial - we need to correspond through newsletters and the internet. One major work was premiered in March 2004, Rainland, by Joseph Phibbs; a work of 30 minutes involving over 1,000 students, it received not a mention in any press, while his 10-minute orchestral piece for the BBC Proms in September 2004 met with critical acclaim.

BEWARE THE ARMED MAN

It was unfortunate that a performance of Gorb’s hilarious latest work, Dances from Crete, was cancelled, but another of my commissions for WASBE, L’Homme Armé, was played. Both works are potentially major additions to the repertoire, since both are packed with emotion, variety, drama, humour, contrast, with great parts for everyone, good for audience and players.

CHRISTOPHER MARSHALL

L’Homme Armé (Maecenas) by New Zealander Christopher Marshall is a set of variations on the old mediaeval tune, loosely patterned on the Symphonic Variations of Dvorak. With a Maori war song, a funeral march, a Mahlerian Ländler, jazz and pop influences and a brief prologue and epilogue of sirens, penned under the shadow of the Iraq war, the work has enormous strength and integrity. Marshall’s first wind work was the beautiful but elusive Aue, (2002, Maecenas) an Ivesian miniature based on the songs and sounds of Samoa, aimed at school bands but demanding the control and confidence of more mature groups, well worth exploring if you are seeking a short restrained tone-poem.

INTERNATIONAL REPERTOIRE SERIES

Volume 1 4949-MCD

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY WIND ENSEMBLE

All we can do is to make it better for the next generations.

H Robert Reynolds

Since 2000 the pace in the UK of commissioning has slowed somewhat, and there has been a certain air of "dumbing down" as the charge of elitism raised its head yet again in the BASBWE Journal and in the WASBE minutes. I wrote my own feelings on "elitism" in an issue of Winds in early 2003:

It was good to see that the old BASBWE rows have still not subsided, and that the critics of "elitist" music are still writing. I am not repentant in the slightest - some of the scores I have commissioned could well be called elitist, Judith Bingham's Three American Icons (1997, Maecenas), John Casken's Distant Variations (1997, Schotts), Tony Gilbert's Dream Carousels (1989, Schotts), many are aimed at students and amateurs. Mozart was accused of writing too many notes, but he seems to have outlasted his less fecund colleagues!

MUSIC FOR SCHOOL AND AMATEUR BANDS

I wonder, too, whether band directors complaining about elitism have ever looked at Adam Gorb’s Bridgewater Breeze (2003, Maecenas), five stunning little movements at about Grade 3, with a Merry-go-round and a Hoe Down, fun for all, or have they explored Michael Ball's Three Processionals, Derek Bourgeois’ Northern Lament, Malcolm Binney's Timpanaglia or Guy Woolfenden's Birthday Treat, all at about Grade 3/4, written for school and community bands to celebrate my 60th birthday.

Have they tried through Stephen McNeff's Ghosts, (2002, Maecenas) a piece almost 20 minutes long, but with licence for the conductor to choose which movements (s)he wants to play, dependant on the difficulty and the calibre of the ensemble. Then there is Philip Wilby's powerful Passion for our Time, (1997, Maecenas) written for school band with choir and dancers and narrator. Or have they given their Grade 4 students the extraordinary Mahlerian experience of playing Bill Connor’s Tales aus dem Voods Viennoise (Maecenas)?

PINK PANTHER MEETS THE WIZARD OF OZ

Paul Patterson's great setting of Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood for narrator and band is harder to play, but certainly not elitist, nor is Gorb's Yiddish Dances or Awayday. If being non-elitist means conducting endless performances of Pink Panther meets the Wizard of Oz, then give me elitism any day, as long as it entertains, it packs an emotional punch, it makes me laugh or weep, scared, whatever! David Bedford once wrote in WINDS of the "tingle factor," the hairs standing up on your spine in a Hitchcock thriller, a Spielberg horror, the entry of the Commendatore in the last act of Don Giovanni, the production of the head of John the Baptist in Salome, the climax of a Mahler Symphony, those fortissimo chords in David's Sun Paints Rainbows over the Vast Waves which dissolve onto a molto pianissimo, an affect for which you need the Royal Albert Hall or a similar vast acoustic. Really that's is what BASBWE, its big brother WASBE, and the commissions are all about, creating a repertoire at all levels of good music.

RNCM COMMISSIONS & PREMIERES 1983 -2002

Between 1983 and 2002, over sixty works new works were created, either commissioned for the wind orchestra of the Royal Northern College of Music, premiered by the orchestra, or commissioned as part of a consortium, which included the College.