Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Terms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Nineteenth-Century Brass Music: The Beginnings
- 2 Brass Music-Making in the Early Twentieth Century
- 3 European Brass Music after World War II: The Establishment of the Brass Quintet in Britain
- 4 The Stimuli of the Modern Brass Ensemble: The Record Industry, Contemporary Music, International Activity, the Player-Arranger
- 5 Howarth’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and the New Reach of British Brass Playing
- 6 Continuity and Change: The Succession of British Brass Ensembles after the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
- 7 Aspects of Historical Brass: Uncovering Phenomena of the Past
- 8 Envoi
- Appendix 1. Selective List of Published Music
- Appendix 2. Selective Discography
- Appendix 3. London Brass: Major Commissions 1986–2001
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Terms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Nineteenth-Century Brass Music: The Beginnings
- 2 Brass Music-Making in the Early Twentieth Century
- 3 European Brass Music after World War II: The Establishment of the Brass Quintet in Britain
- 4 The Stimuli of the Modern Brass Ensemble: The Record Industry, Contemporary Music, International Activity, the Player-Arranger
- 5 Howarth’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and the New Reach of British Brass Playing
- 6 Continuity and Change: The Succession of British Brass Ensembles after the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
- 7 Aspects of Historical Brass: Uncovering Phenomena of the Past
- 8 Envoi
- Appendix 1. Selective List of Published Music
- Appendix 2. Selective Discography
- Appendix 3. London Brass: Major Commissions 1986–2001
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
By the twenty-first century, the study of brass chamber music was widely practised in Britain’s music colleges, broadly comparable to a string student playing in a quartet; where there were scarcities in repertoire, the inclination was to invent, as Tubalaté showed in the 1990s. Likewise, female brass players flourished in the college milieu; many were inspired by the high profile of trumpeter Alison Balsom, who made her debut record for EMI Classics in 2002. In this setting, the development of the all-female Bones Apart trombone quartet at the Royal Northern College of Music was typical of simultaneous developments elsewhere (see Figure 8.1). It was closely followed by the Bella Tromba quartet, formed in 2004 at the Royal Academy of Music, for example.
Bones Apart won the Royal Over-Seas League chamber music prize in 2001, and soon appeared at the Edinburgh Festival. One of their strong points was imaginative presentation and programming. Their theme-based programme, ‘Wonderful Women: Muses, Queens and Warriors’ spanned the twelfth-century music of Hildegard of Bingen to Sammy Fain’s music to the 1953 film Calamity Jane! This was one of several alternative programmes: ‘El Nuevo Mundo’ (the journey from Iberia to the Americas) and ‘If music be the food of love …’ complemented traditional recitals, with Saskia Apon’s First Trombone Quartet (2002), Gary Carpenter’s Secret Love Songs (2003) and other new works complementing arrangements that catered to varied audiences.
In addition to the encouragement of a creative approach to performance, James Watson (who succeeded John Wallace as artistic director of brass at the Royal Academy of Music) formed a flagship Academy Symphonic Brass, that recorded American Icons (CD, 2010). This corresponded to the activity of Eric Crees at the Guildhall School of Music the following year.
The notion of themed programming was compelling to certain established ensembles. Onyx Brass, in addition to its impressive list of over 150 premieres, developed this in Festmusik: A Legacy (CD, 2021). This record explores the ‘heart and soul’ of the timbre and phrasing of nineteenth-century orchestral brass through a series of transcriptions that complement Strauss’s Festmusik (1942–3).
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- The Modern Brass Ensemble in Twentieth-Century Britain , pp. 145 - 150Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022