Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Edward Gregson
Set as the Second Section Test Piece for the 2019 National Finals of the British Brass Band Championships.
Duration 11.00
Composer's Note:
Occasion was published especially for the National Youth Brass Band Championship of Great Britain, held at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 4 October, 1986.
The four movements are :
Fanfare
Festivities
Elegy
Dance
Occasion for Brass Band is in four movements: Fanfare, Festivities, Elegy, and Dance. The opening Fanfare was originally written as a Wedding Fanfare for Paul and Hazel Patterson in 1981, while the Elegy and Dance were commissioned as a test-piece for the first Westsound/Ayrshire Invitation Contest in 1982 for the leading bands in Scotland. Festivities was therefore written last, to complete the work and give it its essentially ‘festive’ character. Except for the Elegy, which is contemplative, the music throughout is extrovert and joyful. The opening Fanfare may be performed separately — or the Fanfare may be left out entirely, making the work a three movement Suite.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Goff Richards
Set as the 3rd. Section testpiece for the 2009 National Finals of the British Brass Band Championships.
Commissioned by the West of England Bandmen’s Festival, with valuable support from South West Arts, for first performance at the Sixtieth Anniversary Festival at Bugle, Cornwall, 1984
Duration: 10 1/2 minutes approx.
PERCUSSION REQUIREMENTS Two players: Timpani, Side Drum, Bass Drum, Triangle, Suspended Cymbal, Clashed Cymbal, Glockenspiel, Bongoes, Bell Tree.
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), SUMMER 2020 SALE TITLES Composer: Kevin Norbury
Normally £44.95 - only £39.95 in our SALE - Limited stock
Set as the Championship Section Test piece for the 2018 Regional Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.
Duration 12.30
This piece was inspired by the ancient Celtic hymn Be Thou My Vision and Dante’s Inferno. Some may think this a strange combination - perhaps it is, but these two sources will help in understanding the thinking behind the work. I have tried to portray the imaginary journey of a human soul from the ‘darkness’ of the earthbound situation to the ‘light’ of spiritual union with God. The inspiration of the hymn places this imaginaryjourney in a specifically Christian context since the focus of the vision is the Trinity.
The mood of the music at its commencement is brooding and troubled, with angular melodic lines, dissonant harmonies and pounding rhythms. While looking at this piece again, I have noticed how the interval of a 4th. emerges as a fundamental element in its melodic and harmonic construction. The piece undergoes a number of stylistic changes in the course of its progress - from the seriousness of the opening to exuberance and triumph at the end. I know that when I was writing the piece, I was working with a very specific imaginary program in mind - to explain that would require a lengthy and tedious analysis. l will feel happier if players and listeners are able to comprehend something meaningful for themselves and reach their own conclusions about the content of the piece.
The melody usually associated with the hymn is also of Celtic origin and is called Slane in most hymnals. A slightly altered version of this melody appears toward the middle of the piece as a martial "leitmotif" propelling the pilgrim onward toward the light. That however, is the only appearance of the melody. After that, the music becomes my own interpretation of the hymn, because the remainder of the piece is based on my own choral setting of the words — the melody of which is heard in its entirety as the cornet solo at the commencement of the slow section (Bar 232). You will hear the melody once more towards the end of the piece in a tranquil but joyous setting, marked ‘Flying’ in the score (Bar 296). The music ends triumphantly as the soul is united with the Creator.
Kevin Norbury’s powerful major work was selected as the Championship Section test piece of the 1999 European Brass Band Championships held in Munich. The piece was inspired by the ancient Celtic hymn “Be Thou My Vision” and Dante’s Inferno. The mood of the music at its commencement is brooding and troubled, with angular melodic lines, dissonant harmonies and pounding rhythms. The work undergoes a number of stylistic changes in the course of its progress — from the seriousness of the opening to exuberance and triumph at the end.
Kevin Norbury is currently employed by The Salvation Army USA Eastern Territory as Music Editor, a position previously occupied by, among others, Erik Leidzen, Peter Graham, Brian Bowen and James Curnow. He moved to the United States at the beginning of 1998 having previously been Senior Editor in the SA’s Music Editorial Department based in London for nearly five years. An active Salvationist, he attends the Montclair Citadel Corps just outside New York City in New Jersey. He is a faculty member of the famed Star Lake Musicarnp and is frequently invited as an instructor to other music camps ~ he enjoys working with young musicians.
Kevin has had a large number of brass and vocal compositions published by The Salvation Army and is now beginning to have music published in the wider musical world. Having started composing relatively late, he still feels he has a lot to learn from the more experienced and established composers and is always open to new influences. His real musical loves are choral music (both as a participant and conductor) and being an accompanist. He has no favorite composer but admires and reveres J.S. Bach and Mozart above all others. His hobbies are reading, walking, birdwatching and listening to all kinds of music.
As a composer of works for brass band he is also well known outside the UK. His work Odyssey was chosen as a mandatory work for the European Brass Band Championships in Munich in 1999. In 2005, he received the assignment of the North American Brass Band Association to write the honorary section of the North American Brass Band Championships . He is the Composer of the Army of the Salvation International Staff Band and works as a publisher of the Army of the Army in London , New York City and Toronto .
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Kevin Norbury
Set as the Championship Section Test piece for the 2018 Regional Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.
Duration 12.30
Kevin Norbury’s powerful major work was selected as the Championship Section test piece of the 1999 European Brass Band Championships held in Munich. The piece was inspired by the ancient Celtic hymn “Be Thou My Vision” and Dante’s Inferno. The mood of the music at its commencement is brooding and troubled, with angular melodic lines, dissonant harmonies and pounding rhythms. The work undergoes a number of stylistic changes in the course of its progress — from the seriousness of the opening to exuberance and triumph at the end.
Kevin Norbury is currently employed by The Salvation Army USA Eastern Territory as Music Editor, a position previously occupied by, among others, Erik Leidzen, Peter Graham, Brian Bowen and James Curnow. He moved to the United States at the beginning of 1998 having previously been Senior Editor in the SA’s Music Editorial Department based in London for nearly five years. An active Salvationist, he attends the Montclair Citadel Corps just outside New York City in New Jersey.
He is a faculty member of the famed Star Lake Musicarnp and is frequently invited as an instructor to other music camps ~ he enjoys working with young musicians.
Kevin has had a large number of brass and vocal compositions published by The Salvation Army and is now beginning to have music published in the wider musical world. Having started composing relatively late, he still feels he has a lot to learn from the more experienced and established composers and is always open to new influences. His real musical loves are choral music (both as a participant and conductor) and being an accompanist. He has no favorite composer but admires
and reveres J.S. Bach and Mozart above all others. His hobbies are reading, walking, birdwatching and listening to all kinds of music.
As a composer of works for brass band he is also well known outside the UK. His work Odyssey was chosen as a mandatory work for the European Brass Band Championships in Munich in 1999. In 2005, he received the assignment of the North American Brass Band Association to write the honorary section of the North American Brass Band Championships . He is the Composer of the Army of the Salvation International Staff Band and works as a publisher of the Army of the Army in London , New York City and Toronto .
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Edward Gregson
Subitiled " Music In An Olden Style" and dedicated to Nicholas and Robert Childs.
This work has been set as the CHAMPIONSHIP Section Testpiece for the British Brass Band Championships, National Finals 2013.
Click on MORE DETAILS to view the Solo Cornet part.
Of Distant Memories was jointly commissioned by the Black Dyke Band and the Worshipful Company of Musicians (with funding provided by John Iles) to mark the centenary of the first original test piece for brass band, written in 1913 for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.
Instrumentation The work is written for normal brass band instrumentation plus timpani and two percussionists. The percussion requirements are as follows: Percussion 1: Suspended cymbal, Snare drum, Triangle, Tam-tam, Tubular Bells, Clashed cymbals Percussion 2: Bass drum, Clashed cymbals, Suspended cymbal (on dome), Giockenspiel, Tubular Bells, Triangle, Tambourin
Composer’s Note Symphonic Tone Poem for brass band The first original test-piece for brass band (Labour and Love by Percy Fletcher) was composed in 1913 for the National Brass Band Championships, held at London’s Crystal Palace. As the centenary of that event approached, I decided to write a work which paid tribute not only to that particular work, but also to some of those other early test-pieces written in the first few decades of the twentieth century, and which still form the backbone of the brass band repertoire today. The list of the composers is a distinguished one of course, including well-known names such as Hoist, Elgar, Ireland, Bliss, Howells and Vaughan Williams, alongside other less familiar ones.
Of Distant Memories pays homage to these composers and theft music, and in the process summons up a kind of subconscious memory bank of the musical languages, styles and forms used by them. To this end my music is conceived in the form of a ‘traditional’ tone poem, reflecting certain aspects (e.g. melodic, harmonic, textural) of those early test pieces. Although I have kept to fairly traditional concepts in planning the architecture of the work, certain aspects of the instrumentation, or scoring, are more contemporary in colouristic terms, as befits a composer writing in the twenty-first century. The percussion requirements are fairly modest, however, similar to those used in the works of that period.
The brass band tradition owes much to the composers of that period, for through their music they established a truly homogeneous ‘British’ brass band sound which has spread throughout many parts of the world. That tradition flourishes today and remains important for today’s composers, even if their musical language is far removed from that of their predecessors. Of Distant Memories is my own way of repaying that gratitude. Edward Gregson
To view 
