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Programme Overview
Barnard Castle
Dance of the Tumblers
A Lincolnshire Posy
Elegy on a RAF theme
Lucy Long
Scramble
John Williams Swings
Interval
Lol
Let the Bells Ring
Once in Royal David’s City
Sleep
Hark! The Herald
A Christmas Overture
The Christmas Song
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10th December 2016 @ 7:30pm
Barnard Castle
Goff Richards
Goff Richards, sometimes credited as Godfrey Richards, was a prominent English brass band arranger and composer. He was well known for his original brass compositions such as “Trailblaze”, “Doyen”, “Exploding Brass!” and the marches “The Jaguar” and “Barnard Castle”. He died on 25 June 2011 in Cheshire, following an illness, at the age of 66. Barnard Castle is a market town in Teesdale, County Durham, England. It is named after the castle around which it grew up.
Dance of the Tumblers
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
arr. Terry Vosvein
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (b. March 18th, 1844, d. June 21st, 1908) is known for his lavish pieces such as Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol, and his many operas.
“Dance of the Tumblers” is taken from the opera The Snow Maiden, a fairytale, which premiered in 1882. It features in a scene when the Tsar hosts a feast in celebration of the coming of spring following the tragic death of the Snow Maiden after a 15 year reign.
A Lincolnshire Posy
Percy Grainger
A Lincolnshire Posy was written by Percy Grainger in 1937 for the American Bandmasters Association.It is considered to be Grainger’s masterpiece. The work consists of six movements each based on folk songs that Grainger heard whilst on travels in Lincolnshire in 1905.
Grainger wrote: "Each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody... a musical portrait of the singer's personality no less than of his habits of song, his regular or irregular wonts of rhythm, his preference for gaunt or ornately arabesque delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone."
Grainger dedicated his "bunch of Wildflowers" to "the old folksingers who sang so sweetly to me."
Elegy on the Royal Air Force March Past
Barrie Hingley
The original score for the Royal Air Force March Past was completed by Sir Walford Davis in 1918. The second part of the march, the trio, was composed by Sir George Dyson. It is this trio section that Wing Commander Barrie Hingley OBE used as inspiration for this reflective Elegy. Hingley is a former Principal Director of Music at the Royal Air Force and one of the service's most prolific composers.
Lucy Long
Fred Godfrey
Bassoon solo - Will Gold
Adolphus Frederick (Fred) Godfrey trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, taking over as Bandmaster of the Coldstream Guards after his father’s death. His compositions include the Marguerite Waltzes, a piccolo solo Yankee Doodle, and Recollections of England which featured in the early London Promenade concerts.
Lucy Long was premiered in Blackpool, written for and played by the orchestra’s seventeen-year-old bassoonist Philip Langdale. The work also featured in the very first London Promenade concert conducted by Henry J Wood at the Queen’s Hall on Saturday 10 August 1895.
Scramble
Nigel Hess
Commissioned by the Royal Air Force, 'Scramble!' is a concert overture for symphonic wind band inspired by images of the RAF's airfields during the Battle of Britain, immortalised for ever in such films as Reach for the Skies.
The pastoral opening depicts the lull before the storm: the young pilots sitting in wicker chairs outside their barracks on a sunlit morning. The peace is, of course, deceptive; suddenly amid siren sounds, there is a shout of 'Scramble!', and a rush to the waiting planes. In no time at all the Squadron is airborne, heading for a skirmish over the English Channel and beyond. A lyrical central section featuring a solo cornet depicts the stillness many pilots described as they flew to engage with the enemy before the battle breaks out once more. For those who returned, it would be only a short while before, once again, they would hear the familiar shout of 'Scramble!'
John Williams Swings
arr. Jay Bocook
Film scoring master John Williams has written music for a variety of genres and style, and this entertaining and powerful medley showcases his jazz roots. This selection includes “Cantina Band” from Star Wars, the main theme from Catch Me If You Can, and the rousing “Swing, Swing, Swing” from the movie 1941.
Interval
L.O.L. - Listen to LOL
Robert Buckley
Robert (Bob) Buckley was born in Brighton, England – he now divides his time between Vancouver, Montreal, and Holland. He has a diverse career as a composer, arranger, performer, producer, recording artist and conductor. LOL (Laugh Out Loud) is a bonkers, cartoony piece of music guaranteed to wake you up after the interval. It was written for the Naden Band of the Royal Canadian Navy in celebration of their 75th anniversary as an opportunity to display their dazzling technical facility and humour.
Let the Bells Ring - Listen to Let the Bells Ring
Robert Buckley
Based on the familiar Ukrainian Bell Carol, Robert Buckley has taken a rhapsodic approach mixing original ideas along with this well-known melody. Originally composed by Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovych, the Ukrainian Bell Carol is part of a large choral work entitled Shchedryk. It was first performed by students of Kiev University in December 1916. The tune is an adaptation of an old ‘shchedrivka’, a song traditionally sung on Ukrainian New Year’s Eve, Leontovych added his own lyrics which concern the legend claiming that when Jesus was born, all the bells on earth started ringing in his honour.
Audience Carol: Once in Royal David’s City
Sleep
Eric Whitacre
Originally written for 8 voices, Whitacre’s Sleep is a setting of the 1923 Robert Frost poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. Though Whitacre was denied using Frost’s text as his estate maintains very strict controls on musical settings of his works.
Audience Carol: Hark! The Herald
A Christmas Overture
Nigel Hess
This vivacious and colourful Christmas Overture, originally commissioned as an orchestral work by John Rutter for his 2007 Christmas Festival, proved an instant success with audience and orchestra alike. Traditional carols, skilfully juxtaposed and interwoven, provide the thematic material. They are, in order of appearance, Ding Dong! Merrily On High; Deck The Halls, Il Est Né Le Divin Enfant, Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, Personent Hodie, We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Angels, From the Realms Of Glory, which brings the overture to a majestic close.
The Christmas Song
Mel Tormé & Robert Wells
arr.
According to Tormé, the song was written during a blistering hot summer in 1945. In an effort to "stay cool by thinking cool". I saw a spiral pad on Wells' piano with four lines written in pencil", Tormé recalled. "They started, 'Chestnuts roasting..., Jack Frost nipping..., Yuletide carols..., Folks dressed up like Eskimos.' Bob didn't think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics."
Goff Richards
Goff Richards, sometimes credited as Godfrey Richards, was a prominent English brass band arranger and composer. He was well known for his original brass compositions such as “Trailblaze”, “Doyen”, “Exploding Brass!” and the marches “The Jaguar” and “Barnard Castle”. He died on 25 June 2011 in Cheshire, following an illness, at the age of 66. Barnard Castle is a market town in Teesdale, County Durham, England. It is named after the castle around which it grew up.
Dance of the Tumblers
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
arr. Terry Vosvein
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (b. March 18th, 1844, d. June 21st, 1908) is known for his lavish pieces such as Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol, and his many operas.
“Dance of the Tumblers” is taken from the opera The Snow Maiden, a fairytale, which premiered in 1882. It features in a scene when the Tsar hosts a feast in celebration of the coming of spring following the tragic death of the Snow Maiden after a 15 year reign.
A Lincolnshire Posy
Percy Grainger
- Dublin Bay (1)
- Horkstow Grange (2)
- The Lost Lady found (6)
A Lincolnshire Posy was written by Percy Grainger in 1937 for the American Bandmasters Association.It is considered to be Grainger’s masterpiece. The work consists of six movements each based on folk songs that Grainger heard whilst on travels in Lincolnshire in 1905.
Grainger wrote: "Each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody... a musical portrait of the singer's personality no less than of his habits of song, his regular or irregular wonts of rhythm, his preference for gaunt or ornately arabesque delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone."
Grainger dedicated his "bunch of Wildflowers" to "the old folksingers who sang so sweetly to me."
Elegy on the Royal Air Force March Past
Barrie Hingley
The original score for the Royal Air Force March Past was completed by Sir Walford Davis in 1918. The second part of the march, the trio, was composed by Sir George Dyson. It is this trio section that Wing Commander Barrie Hingley OBE used as inspiration for this reflective Elegy. Hingley is a former Principal Director of Music at the Royal Air Force and one of the service's most prolific composers.
Lucy Long
Fred Godfrey
Bassoon solo - Will Gold
Adolphus Frederick (Fred) Godfrey trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, taking over as Bandmaster of the Coldstream Guards after his father’s death. His compositions include the Marguerite Waltzes, a piccolo solo Yankee Doodle, and Recollections of England which featured in the early London Promenade concerts.
Lucy Long was premiered in Blackpool, written for and played by the orchestra’s seventeen-year-old bassoonist Philip Langdale. The work also featured in the very first London Promenade concert conducted by Henry J Wood at the Queen’s Hall on Saturday 10 August 1895.
Scramble
Nigel Hess
Commissioned by the Royal Air Force, 'Scramble!' is a concert overture for symphonic wind band inspired by images of the RAF's airfields during the Battle of Britain, immortalised for ever in such films as Reach for the Skies.
The pastoral opening depicts the lull before the storm: the young pilots sitting in wicker chairs outside their barracks on a sunlit morning. The peace is, of course, deceptive; suddenly amid siren sounds, there is a shout of 'Scramble!', and a rush to the waiting planes. In no time at all the Squadron is airborne, heading for a skirmish over the English Channel and beyond. A lyrical central section featuring a solo cornet depicts the stillness many pilots described as they flew to engage with the enemy before the battle breaks out once more. For those who returned, it would be only a short while before, once again, they would hear the familiar shout of 'Scramble!'
John Williams Swings
arr. Jay Bocook
Film scoring master John Williams has written music for a variety of genres and style, and this entertaining and powerful medley showcases his jazz roots. This selection includes “Cantina Band” from Star Wars, the main theme from Catch Me If You Can, and the rousing “Swing, Swing, Swing” from the movie 1941.
Interval
L.O.L. - Listen to LOL
Robert Buckley
Robert (Bob) Buckley was born in Brighton, England – he now divides his time between Vancouver, Montreal, and Holland. He has a diverse career as a composer, arranger, performer, producer, recording artist and conductor. LOL (Laugh Out Loud) is a bonkers, cartoony piece of music guaranteed to wake you up after the interval. It was written for the Naden Band of the Royal Canadian Navy in celebration of their 75th anniversary as an opportunity to display their dazzling technical facility and humour.
Let the Bells Ring - Listen to Let the Bells Ring
Robert Buckley
Based on the familiar Ukrainian Bell Carol, Robert Buckley has taken a rhapsodic approach mixing original ideas along with this well-known melody. Originally composed by Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovych, the Ukrainian Bell Carol is part of a large choral work entitled Shchedryk. It was first performed by students of Kiev University in December 1916. The tune is an adaptation of an old ‘shchedrivka’, a song traditionally sung on Ukrainian New Year’s Eve, Leontovych added his own lyrics which concern the legend claiming that when Jesus was born, all the bells on earth started ringing in his honour.
Audience Carol: Once in Royal David’s City
Sleep
Eric Whitacre
Originally written for 8 voices, Whitacre’s Sleep is a setting of the 1923 Robert Frost poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. Though Whitacre was denied using Frost’s text as his estate maintains very strict controls on musical settings of his works.
Audience Carol: Hark! The Herald
A Christmas Overture
Nigel Hess
This vivacious and colourful Christmas Overture, originally commissioned as an orchestral work by John Rutter for his 2007 Christmas Festival, proved an instant success with audience and orchestra alike. Traditional carols, skilfully juxtaposed and interwoven, provide the thematic material. They are, in order of appearance, Ding Dong! Merrily On High; Deck The Halls, Il Est Né Le Divin Enfant, Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, Personent Hodie, We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Angels, From the Realms Of Glory, which brings the overture to a majestic close.
The Christmas Song
Mel Tormé & Robert Wells
arr.
According to Tormé, the song was written during a blistering hot summer in 1945. In an effort to "stay cool by thinking cool". I saw a spiral pad on Wells' piano with four lines written in pencil", Tormé recalled. "They started, 'Chestnuts roasting..., Jack Frost nipping..., Yuletide carols..., Folks dressed up like Eskimos.' Bob didn't think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics."
