Antiphonies
Philip Wilby (b. 1949)
Beethoven (2022)
Judith Bingham (b. 1952)
Venice – Euphonium Concerto
Stephen Roberts
Shades of the Soul
Oliver Waespi (b. 1971)
Daniel Thomas (euphonium)
Black Dyke Band/Nicholas Childs
No recording information provided
Reviewed as a download
World of Brass DOYCD445 [62]

This is another excellent CD from World of Brass featuring a concerto for brass band and euphonium by Judith Bingham along with other works by contemporary composers based on music by Beethoven, Chopin and Byrd.

Black Dyke Band are one of the world’s premiere brass band and have recorded a significant number of CDs over the years. Three recent ones reviewed by MusicWeb International are Bliss – Works for Brass Band; Lloyd – The Works for Brass; and Rutter: Brass at Christmas Their commitment to new music as well as brass based arrangements of music written for other genres is impressive; since the year 2000 alone, the tally of Black Dyke commissions and premieres has exceeded the century mark. Their music director Prof. Nicholas J Childs is a major force within the brass band world and a keen champion of new music.

The composer of the first piece Beethoven is Philip Wilby, who tells us in the CD booklet, “For many musicians, lockdown was a long and frustrating fallow period. However, many composers found themselves inundated with requests for new projects, and my Audio-Visual guide to the brass band: Beethoven was completed during this period of isolation. Commissioned by Black Dyke Band Chairman David Allen, it is a work of music theatre, involving many choreographic instructions for players to move around the stage.” When it is performed, solo players are assembled  in three areas, using eleven solo stands, hence groups of instruments are featured both aurally and visually. As such, it is a ‘Plain Guide to the Brass Band’, similar to Britten’s 1945 Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra which was an introduction to the instruments of the orchestra. That is an intriguing idea but I wondered how this would work in a purely aural form. The piece has three sections which are played without a break: i. Prologue; ii. Theme and Variations; iii. Fugue and Finale

It opens in an energetic, almost frantic, way, then we hear the music of Ode to Joy played softly. The snare drum features then various sections of the band feature as the music builds in pace again. It suddenly stops and we hear the plaintiff tones of a single cornet with a sustained peaceful melody. The tempo rises again and we hear the whole band playing fragments of music, creating a real mix of sound. Ode to Joy appears again increasingly involving more and more of the instruments to create a lively atmosphere leading to a rousing ending. So does it achieve its aim of introducing the audience to the various instruments in a brass band? Yes, I believe that it does through the way the music is shared around. It is a clever piece that really shows off what skilled musicians can achieve. 

Judith Bingham’s euphonium concerto was written specifically for brass band; it is also known as Venice. She having decided to write a piece about Venice, her specific inspiration for the work came from an old coin: a silver grosso, made around 1280 in the time of the Doge Jacopo Contarini.  There are four movements:

i. Sunrise with Barcarolle 
This has a slow gentle start dominated by a solo; the music then seems to mimic the sound of bells as the tension increases before finishing in a rather solemn, mournful way. 

ii. Pantalone and Friends 
Pantalone is a character in Commedia dell’arte who is known for his exceptional miserly ways. His friends are Columbine and the drunken, sneaky servant Zanni . The music has a comical, mocking nature and is great fun.

iii. Stabat Mater 
Bingham tells “The third movement evokes the slow movements of Vivaldi and Pergolesi. The euphonium is, in a way, ‘singing’ the words of the Stabat Mater, a sacred poem about Mary’s grief for the dead Jesus. The descending sections from the upper brass are like the tears on Baroque figures of the weeping Mary. The deep bells of San Marco sound.” It certainly feels mournful with lots of engaging melodies, complemented by the ringing of bells on occasions. The descending sections from the upper brass are certainly atmospheric.

iv. Marriage with the Sea, and Fanfare 
The final movement makes reference to Venice’s relationship with the sea. The frequent pairing of the euphonium with the vibraphone creates an unusual sense of the water over which Venice is, of course, built. It begins with a fanfare before the soloist takes the lead with motifs that are then repeated by the rest of the band.

The whole concerto is played very well by the soloist Daniel Thomas who is principal euphonium player with Black Dyke; a seat previously held by Robert Childs.

Shades of the Soulwas composed by Stephen Roberts and I have used his words freely in my description of the work. It is based on the music of Frédéric Chopin and loosely expresses an outline of the Polish composer’s life through a series of musical snapshots. The opening use motifs from Chopin’s Nocturne (Op. 27 No. 1), written at the age of 21 after being diagnosed with consumption. His childhood is represented by the Étude in E major (Op. 10 No. 3), otherwise known as Tristesse. Chopin’s romantic attachment to the novelist Aurore Dudevant, better known as George Sand, is realised in a series of rather engaging duets based on his Nocturne in Db (Op. 27 No. 2) and Andante Spianato. The breakdown of this relationship, Chopin’s declining ill-health and his depression as a result of the imprisonment of his Polish resistance acquaintances are expressed in the turbulent Étude in B minor (Op. 25 No. 10), known as Octaves. The work begins as in a dream as the familiar Chopin melody is played by a solo cornet with flourishes from the rest of the band. The melodies are then shared across the whole band and the duets really add to the easy going delightful atmosphere of the work. Also featuring are short high energy sections which really show off Black Dyke’s undoubted mastery of their art.

The final work on the CD is Antiphonies,a homage to the music of William Byrd marking the 400^th anniversary of his death in 2023. It is Oliver Waespi’s, a Swiss composer, second take on English renaissance music; a review of another of Waspi’s works La Partenza (The Parting) written in 2011 can be found here. 

In particular, this work uses motifs from Byrd’s motet Sing Joyfully; the antiphonal positions of different instrument groups play an essential role throughout the piece. Antiphonies starts with a fanfare and for much of its time is fast paced, full of vibrant orchestral colours as the motifs are passed around between several instruments. A sense of rhythm follows as the music becomes increasingly driven and virtuosic; we then hear a slow section with a melancholic and harmonic yet uplifting tone. Another rapidly played section emerges that is full of energy if not a little frantic, followed by a further slow section which is reminiscent of the earlier harmonic music. From there, slow sound waves gradually develop into a broad, antiphonal sound field, bringing the piece to a lively close.

This release once again highlights the great skills of Black Dyke and their very imaginative musical director, Nicholas Childs. The CD booklet is full of interesting information which has been a great help to me in writing this review. Finally the CD brochure says “Nicholas Childs would like to dedicate this recording to the memory of Elgar Howarth (1935-2025), one of the main architects for brass bands in the last century, and a good friend.”

Ken Talbot