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Text of the Grimethorpe article in the Telegraph

Here is the text of the article about Grimethorpe which appeared in last
Tuesday's Daily Telegraph.

Alec


Le brass band? Magnifique!

It may be difficult to believe, but the height of chic in Paris this summer
is the sound of the colliery brass band. Brian Hunt reports as the Brassed
Off phenomenon takes working-men's music to Europe's most sophisticated city

IT would be stretching a point, but you could say that British brass band
music came home to Paris at the weekend. It was in the Paris workshops of
Belgian inventor Adolphe Sax that brass instruments underwent crucial design
improvements which made them more reliable, more in tune and, through mass
production, more affordable.
When Sax exhibited at the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition in 1851, wealthy
industrialists down from the North saw the potential for the brass band
movement which would bind communities together - and, since the instruments
were often bought through loans guaranteed by the employer, would bind
workers to the workplace.
The sight of the Grimethorpe Colliery Band on a bandstand outside the
high-tech, Boulez-inspired Cit de la Musique complex was still slightly
incongruous. Paris has suddenly woken up to brass bands; the film Brassed
Off ("Les Virtuoses") was a bigger hit in France than in Britain, and a
special showing was part of this themed weekend. The bandstand concert was
one of three given by Grimethorpe, the others taking place inside the Cit
de la Musique auditorium itself.
The Parisians stretched out on the pavement relished the selection of light
classics and heavy pops, as well they might, given performances as
disciplined and expressive as those secured by director Garry Cutt.
Musicianship of this order has universal appeal. Yet the sound of a brass
band brings with it so many culturally specific associations: factory
chimneys, cobbled streets, cloth caps.
It is in Grimethorpe's interests to go beyond such stereotypes, if only to
continue erasing the attitude expressed in the first (1880) edition of
Grove's dictionary: "Of course, looked upon as high art culture, brass bands
are of no account." This is a band that, under Elgar Howarth's inspired and
ambitious leadership in the 1970s and '80s, commissioned and performed works
by Henze and Birtwistle.
It is also a band that, since October 13, 1992, has needed to broaden its
horizons. The closure of the pits left the West Yorkshire town with no
obvious reason to exist. The survival of the colliery band can be seen as
the community's main symbol of continuity, though trombonist Jonathan Beatty
points out: "Not all the locals are particularly proud of having the band.
When mines were open, there was a bit of annoyance that band members got off
working to go and play, that they seemed to get special treatment."
The people of Grimethorpe are not renowned for sentimentality, in or out of
the band. The day an unpopular conductor found a noose hanging over his
rostrum is well remembered. No such unpleasant surprises awaited Peter
Bassano when he took his place as conductor for the two indoor concerts. It
was Bassano, a trombonist with the Philharmonia, who dreamed up
Grimethorpe's Paris excursion and negotiated with Cit de la Musique.
The programmes offered a potted history of the brass-band movement: operatic
and orchestral excerpts, the repertoire on which the first bands thrived;
outrageously florid solos (brilliant young cornet soloist Richard Marshall
tying his tongue into elaborate knots in The Carnival of Venice and Zelda);
and many of the imposing "test pieces" for contests, works which have become
the backbone of the bands' serious repertoire.
Among the less austere moments, Gounod's aria Lend Me Your Aid, arranged as
a trombone solo by J Ord-Hume, found Jonathan Beatty in commanding form, his
phrasing as clean as his tone, the vibrato intrinsic to the band style
perfectly integrated into the bel canto.
Richness and variety of tone are Grimethorpe's great strengths. Bassano had
clearly worked on refinement of balance and colour, being less concerned
with the ultra-precision insisted on by specialist band directors, steeped
in competition culture. Percy Fletcher's Labour and Love (a test piece for
the 1913 National Championships), growled and purred, sang and scorched.
Eric Ball's Resurgam (written for the 1950 British Open) used all these
resources to generate even more emotional power.

Resurgam is a declaration of the composer's faith as a Salvationist; the
under-appreciated importance of the Salvation Army to British banding was
something of a sub-plot to the concerts. Brassed Off's influence was another
more commercially aware strand to the programmes. After all, the Grimethorpe
band provided the movie's soundtrack and the screenplay was largely their
own story. Mark Walters's firm, caressing flugelhorn solo in Concerto
d'Aranjuez, a memorable part of the film score, brought the house down.
There was also a world premiere: Andrew Powell's Themes and Episodes:
Falstaff. With a drive and incisiveness derived from pop music, an evocative
whimsicality drawing on centuries of English music, the piece used the band
in unconventional but effective ways.
After Michael Dodd's stylish and mellow playing of Joseph Horovitz's
Euphonium Concerto, the final concert closed with a masterpiece of the brass
band genre, John McCabe's Cloudcatcher Fells. The towering climax was an
awe-inspiring demonstration of how much the band had kept in reserve
throughout their concentrated and discriminating performance.
Although diminished by post-World Cup fatigue and summer exodus, the Paris
audience was tremendously enthusiastic in its reception for all three
concerts. The band's majestic music-making seemed to vindicate Jonathan
Beatty's optimism for the future of a style of music too often viewed with
distorting nostalgia: "Even though there's a tradition, there's nothing
holding bands back. You can do anything with a band."


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