Harrison Birtwistle, "Grimethorpe Aria"
-- Liner Notes --
The brass band occupies a special place in British musical life. Widely admired, yet almost completely isolated from other forms of music making; entirely amateur in its playing status, yet at its highest level, virtuosic in instrumental technique; deserving a new, rich, continuing repertoire, yet extremely conservative in its musical taste, it presents for the present day composer a paradox, at once an exciting potential medium, yet one whose specialised instrumentation and cautious musical approach combine to produce a somewhat daunting challenge. Nevertheless, in the past few years several composers outside conservative circles have tackled the problem with great enthusiasm, enlivening and revitalising a repertoire which had become in-bred and stale.
Each of the composers on this disc has come to the brass band from a different background: Henze from the main-stream of European tradition with no previous knowledge of such' a grouping of brass instruments: Takemitsu, the Japanese composer, by way of the brass ensemble (itself previously unknown to him) and in an arrangement of my own: Birtwistle from childhood memories of bands playing in his native Accrington in the north of England-and co-incidentally in a neighbouring village of Grimethorpe where he had relatives living in the late 40s: and myself from the inside as a former bandsman.
Birtwistle's GRIMETHORPE ARIA, was the first work commissioned by the Grimethorpe band from a leading composer and dates from 1973. Uncompromisingly bleak in mood, mostly slow in tempo, its anguished, pessimistic harmonies have not yet endeared it to band audiences reared on more ear-tickling fare. Like Henze, though in a different way, Birtwistle has re-structured the traditional scoring, rejecting the hierarchy of massed cornets and unison tubas in favour of individual parts. The result is a dense, yet multi-layered texture, massive in the great climaxes of the work (doubled in this performance on the two bands).
The shape of the piece may be summarised as follows:
Grimethorpe Aria, startled the band public of 1973 into an awareness of a wider musical world; fortunately for audiences of the future its strongly felt and realised emotional content will assure it a place in band history of much more significance than any mere passing succes de scandale-rather as a masterpiece of the repertoire. -- Elgar Howarth
The brass band occupies a special place in British musical life. Widely admired, yet almost completely isolated from other forms of music making; entirely amateur in its playing status, yet at its highest level, virtuosic in instrumental technique; deserving a new, rich, continuing repertoire, yet extremely conservative in its musical taste, it presents for the present day composer a paradox, at once an exciting potential medium, yet one whose specialised instrumentation and cautious musical approach combine to produce a somewhat daunting challenge. Nevertheless, in the past few years several composers outside conservative circles have tackled the problem with great enthusiasm, enlivening and revitalising a repertoire which had become in-bred and stale.
Each of the composers on this disc has come to the brass band from a different background: Henze from the main-stream of European tradition with no previous knowledge of such' a grouping of brass instruments: Takemitsu, the Japanese composer, by way of the brass ensemble (itself previously unknown to him) and in an arrangement of my own: Birtwistle from childhood memories of bands playing in his native Accrington in the north of England-and co-incidentally in a neighbouring village of Grimethorpe where he had relatives living in the late 40s: and myself from the inside as a former bandsman.
Birtwistle's GRIMETHORPE ARIA, was the first work commissioned by the Grimethorpe band from a leading composer and dates from 1973. Uncompromisingly bleak in mood, mostly slow in tempo, its anguished, pessimistic harmonies have not yet endeared it to band audiences reared on more ear-tickling fare. Like Henze, though in a different way, Birtwistle has re-structured the traditional scoring, rejecting the hierarchy of massed cornets and unison tubas in favour of individual parts. The result is a dense, yet multi-layered texture, massive in the great climaxes of the work (doubled in this performance on the two bands).
The shape of the piece may be summarised as follows:
Grimethorpe Aria, startled the band public of 1973 into an awareness of a wider musical world; fortunately for audiences of the future its strongly felt and realised emotional content will assure it a place in band history of much more significance than any mere passing succes de scandale-rather as a masterpiece of the repertoire. -- Elgar Howarth
Labels: Avant Garde Project, Hans Werner Henze, Harrison Birtwistle, jodru, Toru Takemitsu
posted by jodru at 22:10
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