Brassed Off
Aug. 9th, 2022 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiI had to poke around the BBC Proms Archive to track down Brass Day, the previous occasion I'd been to a Prom featuring Brass Band music. As I arrived at the hall early in the morning, I wondered where the queue was, and it was only at the last minute that I confirmed I wasn't at the head of it. This did mean that I had a good position on the rail; in fact the stage arrangement for the first half of the concert was precipitately close to the audience, very much back to pre-covid days. As the Tredegar Band arrived on stage, it became apparent that quite a few people in the audience were familiar with band members.
The Tredegar Band were accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and collectively conducted by Ryan Bancroft in a Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra by Gavin Higgins. You know you're getting old when composers start looking young. This was an interesting work; the notes indicated a general programme following the heritage of Brass Band music, from mysterious island primordiality through industrial and post-industrial landscapes, to a more contemporary competitive band culture. I would say the piece was just the right length, and it was well received. After some minor rearrangements, musical director Ian Porthouse (the band credits seem to suggest the Porthouses are something of a dynasty in the cornet department) took to the podium for an encore, an arrangement of folk song Ar Lan y Môr.
I'd picked this concert not only for the brass band, but also for the second half work, the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz. This features regularly at the Proms, and I've missed it for one reason or another on several occasions, so it seemed a good opportunity this year. Although I think it was well performed, I have to admit I wasn't bowled over by the music, which at times felt to me a bit derivative. It's clearly a transitional work; the opening movement felt as though it could have been anyone generically in French revolutionary mood; the Scene in the country, felt as if it openly hailed to Beethoven's Pastoral symphony; the waltz, A Ball, could be Weber or Tchaikovsky. The programme for the symphony feels overwrought and melodramatic to me; though the notes explained the opium-infused March to the Scaffold, which was musically impressive, and drew enough applause to make me wonder if I had misunderstood, that this was in fact the end of the symphony. But no, I was correct, there was another final movement to come: the Dream of a Witches' Sabbath with its dramatic bells. We could not see the bells in the arena, but they were very loud and clear, which makes me wonder whether they were in fact recordings being played out via a speaker above the orchestra, rather than offstage or in the gallery.
After the concert I returned to Paddington just in time to be caught up in disruption due to a line-side fire in the Slough area. In fact I sat on a train for longer than I had been in the concert. A few years ago someone pointed out that the BBC NoW Proms finish a little earlier, so that they can pack their bags and be driven back to Wales rather than spend money putting up the orchestra in London hotels for the night; but despite the early finish to the concert, it was well past midnight by the time I arrived home.
The Tredegar Band were accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and collectively conducted by Ryan Bancroft in a Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra by Gavin Higgins. You know you're getting old when composers start looking young. This was an interesting work; the notes indicated a general programme following the heritage of Brass Band music, from mysterious island primordiality through industrial and post-industrial landscapes, to a more contemporary competitive band culture. I would say the piece was just the right length, and it was well received. After some minor rearrangements, musical director Ian Porthouse (the band credits seem to suggest the Porthouses are something of a dynasty in the cornet department) took to the podium for an encore, an arrangement of folk song Ar Lan y Môr.
I'd picked this concert not only for the brass band, but also for the second half work, the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz. This features regularly at the Proms, and I've missed it for one reason or another on several occasions, so it seemed a good opportunity this year. Although I think it was well performed, I have to admit I wasn't bowled over by the music, which at times felt to me a bit derivative. It's clearly a transitional work; the opening movement felt as though it could have been anyone generically in French revolutionary mood; the Scene in the country, felt as if it openly hailed to Beethoven's Pastoral symphony; the waltz, A Ball, could be Weber or Tchaikovsky. The programme for the symphony feels overwrought and melodramatic to me; though the notes explained the opium-infused March to the Scaffold, which was musically impressive, and drew enough applause to make me wonder if I had misunderstood, that this was in fact the end of the symphony. But no, I was correct, there was another final movement to come: the Dream of a Witches' Sabbath with its dramatic bells. We could not see the bells in the arena, but they were very loud and clear, which makes me wonder whether they were in fact recordings being played out via a speaker above the orchestra, rather than offstage or in the gallery.
After the concert I returned to Paddington just in time to be caught up in disruption due to a line-side fire in the Slough area. In fact I sat on a train for longer than I had been in the concert. A few years ago someone pointed out that the BBC NoW Proms finish a little earlier, so that they can pack their bags and be driven back to Wales rather than spend money putting up the orchestra in London hotels for the night; but despite the early finish to the concert, it was well past midnight by the time I arrived home.