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Instrumental straightjackets (was alternative instrument for cornet players

-----Original Message-----
From: Adrian J. Raven <aj.raven@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 24 April 1998 07:37
Subject: Re: alternative instrument for cornet players


.... but I cannot
>help thinking that we may have discouraged some of the great composers
>from writing for the medium. Just imagine what composers like
>Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bernstein, Copland, Britten, etc. etc. could
>have contributed, were there no instrumental straightjacket. (not to
>mention the contest piece time constraints, which almost alienated one
>of our own composers recently, but that's another topic for discussion!)

Who was this last-mentioned person, please?
>
At the end of the day,
>music should be the prime consideration ....

Music to my ears!!

>Although we have seen a major increase in the sound colours available
>from a brass band, (thanks to Messrs. McCabe, Howarth, Wilby, etc.) I
>doubt that we have even scratched the surface of what is possible. It's
>time we gave composers a freer rein, before they, too are all dead.

And what a pity our predecessors did not take this advice 90 - odd years
ago.  Here in the UK, the brass band fraternity have been so preoccupied
with the futile activity of contesting, that they have let world-class
composers slip through their fingers.  What do we have to show for rubbing
shoulders with the great composers?  Elgar (one piece), Holst (one piece),
Vaughan-Williams (two pieces, one of which never saw the light of day until
the 1980s), Tippett (one piece - or was the Festal Brass & Blues taken from
something else?), Britten (not a note), Walton (not a sausage)  - composers
on our very doorstep.  (Honourable exception - Robert Simpson).  As for
living composers, we have one piece from Birtwistle, one from
Maxwell-Davies, a couple of pieces from Robin Holloway - but where are the
pieces from Dominic Muldowney, James MacMillan, Mark Antony Turnage, John
Tavener etc, etc, etc. (Second honourable exception - John McCabe).

Don't misunderstand me, we have some marvellous composers, writing
marvellous music, - Wilby, Sparke, Howarth to name but three - but with the
greatest of respect to them, I don't think that they are names which the
concert-going public at large would recognise (in the case of Howarth, as a
composer) - unlike the names mentioned in the preceding paragraph, which
are.  If bands want "to be taken seriously", as the phrase goes, they could
do a lot worse than play the music of composers with which the concert-going
public are familiar.  Then, people might think that bands are relevant in
the big wide world of music.

Best wishes

________________________
Alec Gallagher
alec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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