Some of the contents of the pages on this site are Copyright © 2016 NJH Music | [Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] That time of year!
Hi there fellow listee's Well - here we are again on the verge of another 'area' season with all it's incumbent emotions. I'm delighted to be called off the bench once again to play with my hometown band in this years area. However - I have to be honest and say that, with the greatest respect to the composer, I don't think that the test piece, Passacaglia, will gain a place in my all time top ten test pieces, indeed I have to say that I didn't like it on first playing, and I don't like it now - BUT - I have immense respect for it's requirements as a test piece and it will certainly do its job. (There again - if the object of contesting is to find simply the best band then a few pages from the back of the arban arranged in C# Major with nothing below the stave played prestissimo would do the job just as well)! With all this in mind it was fascinating to read Arthur Butterworth's article in this weeks BB - for which I thank him and them - and from which I venture to quote one of many passages that I would have liked to if space would permit: ".......Were all performances to be mere clones of a one and only, universally acknowledged 'authentic' performance, there would be no point at all in comparing one performance with another and contesting would cease to have a purpose. It is the infinite variety of interpretation that makes our appreciation of repeated - but ever different - performances so beguiling." Good griefski - radical or what! How many times have we all stood there at the end of a contest in great anticipation listening to the judges "few words" to hear them say, after a sharp intake of breath and a shake of the head, "....you can't do that, I'm an adjudicator and it's not on the score"! I only have to think back to The Open on Les Preludes recently - a piece I have always liked - and an excellent arrangement. The top six bands were without doubt worthy of the top six prizes - five of them were interpretations of the score whilst the other was an inspiring interpretation of the music, (nice one Bramster)! I see fellow listee, the venerable Steve Sykes, is to do the judgementals in this section at Burton On Trent and I have no doubt that he will do his own thing in his own inimitable style and provide us with a memorable day that will remain in the memory for years to come! Colin Randle. P.S. The best of banding luck and sincere good wishes for you and your conductor for this years area's, and remember this, wherever your band finishes, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter in the light of what's about to kick off in another land. -- NJH Sheet Music, bandsman.co.uk/music.htm, Prima Arts, quality music for quality bands, www.prima-arts.co.uk, Toot-Sweet, instrument repairers, www.toot-sweet.co.uk, Free e-mail address with spam and virus removal, bandsman.co.uk/mail.htm this list, send a plain text mail to listproc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the following body (not subject):
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