Brass Band Logo

NJH Music Logo

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]

Re: Arrangements and original music

Wow David, that's quite a Credo!  But I can't fault your wish list.

Pre-19th century (when tone colour was considered less important in Western
music) composers were much happier to have arrangements of their work made -
Mozart reportedly rushed off his own wind band arrangements of new operas to
sell tickets and to beat the competition - in the days before copyright.
Even in the 20th century, composers (e.g. Schoenberg) were not uncomfortable
about re-scoring Brahms' chamber music for orchestra, for example.
Transcriptions are an important part of our heritage and until relatively
recently they could still be heard very regularly, chosen for the major
contests in the UK.  (And just last year we heard Berlioz's Carnaval Romain
at the Senior Cup).  As you imply, we shouldn't be ashamed of these.  An
earlier writer on this forum suggested that digital recording had made the
need for transcriptions obsolete - to my mind this is not the case: how many
(digital or analogue) recordings of Beethoven symphony cycles do we really
need and how could they possibly replace the sheer thrill of hearing a top
band playing Wagner - live?

And your analysis of the 'snobbery' issue seems spot on.  Whilst the rest of
the musical world has discovered 'crossover' and it's now OK for string
quartets to play Hendrix and for Nigel Kennedy to play - errrrrr - well,
anything really, why should it still be seen as a bit of a joke that those
of us who have always 'crossed over' are still doing it?  I can only suppose
it's due to the widely held perception that we don't have a serious
repertoire of our own...

Sad but true: we utterly neglect the band classics of the past 100 years and
we've stopped asking (or rather paying) the best new composers to write for
us. But its in our hands and if everyone who had written to this forum
expressing that same sentiment had translated their concerns into good
practice there probably wouldn't be a problem any more.  Until we programme
serious music in our concerts we can't expect to be taken seriously by the
wider musical establishment.  (I'd be very interested to hear what you (and
others) believe to be our 'core repertoire': Elgar and Holst, for sure, but
Vinter, Ball, Gregson???  Or Wilfred Heaton, Robert Simpson and Harrison
Birtwistle???  Is it 'core repertoire' if no-one plays it???)

Over Easter, the band I conduct is touring Gemany.  Our concert programmes
will include Moorside Suite and Cloudcatcher Fells, alongside old
transcriptions (Rimmer's Zauberflote) and newer ones (from Howard Snell and
others).  There are lighter original pieces from Philip Sparke and Peter
Graham (and a new one by me!) but all this is in the context of two fairly
typical band programmes with lots of swing, solo features, pop arrangements,
novelties etc. etc. etc. which I believe that the audiences will enjoy.  I'd
hate to think that anyone hearing a band for the first time left the concert
under the impression that all we do is play arrangements of light music and
had nothing of our own to offer; equally, I don't want to underestimate the
musical intelligence of our audiences.

(I'm not trying to set myself up as a paradigm of good practice - just
trying to make the point that this is too important an issue to be resticted
to abstract debate on internet fora, it's something we've got to put into
practice with our bands, and every band and conductor should find their own
solution to suit their own players and audiences; sticking heads in sand is
no solution).

David

--


	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):

[Services] [Contact Us] [Advertise with us] [About] [Tell a friend about us] [Copyright © 2016 NJH Music]