Fanfare - British Music For Symphonic Brass Ensemble

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Elite brass playing superbly recorded in 1977 and all at bargain price. I have known this collection since buying its first version - an RCA...
Elite brass playing superbly recorded in 1977 and all at bargain price.

I have known this collection since buying its first version - an RCA LP: RL 25081. The collection’s LP origins are pretty obvious from the shortish playing time.

“Symphonic Brass Ensemble” signifies the traditional orchestral brass benches plus, in this case, timpani for Elgar’s lavish Hereford fanfare. While pandering to grand civic pride this fanfare manages to threads in some tragedy as well, Hereford did well with this commission. Bliss’s Fanfare for the Lord Mayor of London is splendid and perhaps pays passing tribute towards the end of its 1:31 to Janá?ek. It’s one of the most substantial of fanfares. Walton’s smashingly effervescent DNA imbues his Fanfare as arranged by Sargent. Havergal Brian’s Festival Fanfare is full of striking gestures, slashes and ascents. It’s alive with curmudgeonly character and in touch with the world of his enigmatic, angry and noble symphonies. Just as thrawn - and very much a symphonist - was Robert Simpson. While Simpson has had all his symphonies recorded by Hyperion Brian still awaits this accolade. It seems as far off as ever. Simpson was a granitic champion of Brian’s music and was responsible for the effort that resulted in the BBC studio-recording most of the 32 Brian symphonies for broadcast. His Canzona is the longest musical paragraph here. It’s also the most earnest and even the most beautiful in its evolutionary bloom. It dates from 1958 - the among the earliest years of Simpson’s long stay as a producer with the BBC. Tippett’s Fanfare is as distinctively Tippett as the Brian is pure Brian. His crunching and clashing harmonic ramparts leave one in little doubt as to the composer’s identity.

Bliss’s Fanfare for Coming of Age is adroitly regal with the suggestion of terraces and battlements - I wondered if it was intended for the Investiture of the Prince of Wales - no such thing. It dates from 1972 and was written for the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra. Bliss’s six Royal Fanfares include side-drum and cymbal. They’re very inventive. The Bliss Fanfare for Heroes looks back to the 1930 masterpiece Morning Heroes but only passim. Bliss’s Homage to Shakespeare is self-consciously antiquarian but with plenty of magniloquent Purcellian ‘attitude’.

Rubbra’s Fanfare for Europe has a slow and grand gait built and is around the notes EEC. It was written for the UK’s entry into the EU. Rather like the Bliss sequence, which also sports a central interlude, Jacob’s Interludes for trumpets and trombones is inventive but unlike the Bliss it has something of Rubbra’s Farnaby Improvisations about it. It dates from 1951. The three Benjamin microscopies are imperiously clamorous. Walton’s arrangement of a Queen’s Fanfare starts in with reminiscences of the Prelude and Spitfire Fugue. Michael Coe piles the dissonance and complexity high for his uniquely disquieting arrangement of the national anthem. It’s bound, playfully and magnificently, to disorientate any audience.

The programme notes are by Noel Goodwin.

Elite brass playing superbly recorded in 1977 and all at bargain price.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International


Product Description:


  • Release Date: October 28, 1992


  • UPC: 095115657324


  • Catalog Number: CHAN 6573


  • Label: Chandos


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Period: Chandos


  • Composer: Anonymous, Arthur Benjamin, Edmund Rubbra, Gordon Jacob, Havergal Brian, Michael Tippett, Robert Simpson, Sir Arthur Bliss, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir William Walton


  • Conductor: James Stobart


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Locke Brass Consort, Locke Brass Ensemble


  • Performer: Locke Brass Consort, Locke Brass Ensemble