Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Martin Ellerby
Dedicated to Stan and Shirley Kitchen, and set as the test piece for the 2012 BRITISH OPEN BRASS BAND CHAMPIONSHIPS in symphony Hall in Birmingham on Saturday the 1st. of September - and the Netherlands Brass Band Championships.
Duration, variable dependent upon interpretation c 12.00
Click on MORE DETAILS to view the 1st. and 2nd. Cornet Parts.
Electra, is loosely based on the play by Sophocles and the ‘Elecktra chord ‘used by the composer Richard Strauss to represent the eponymous character of his opera Elektra. This ‘chord’ and its various off-shoots provide the harmonic foundation for my whole work. The ‘chord’ is heard within the introductory bars as an expressive ‘scream’ and also once again at the climax of the first section in much the same style. Because this ‘chord’ can be interpreted in a vast number of ways I was intrigued to see how it could be developed over a reasonable span to provide the basis for a complete work without having anything to do with Strauss’s opera at all! However, the challenge was to make it work in such a way that it would not disturb a mainstream audience yet enable a brass band test piece to emerge unscathed from such intellectual origins.
My previous commissioned test pieces for brass band contests (Tristan Encounters, Chivalty, Elgar Variations, Malcolm Arnold Variations) have been built on a method of perpetual metamorphosis and emerged somewhat episodic in construction. Here there are three clear sections enabling a more symphonic approach to the writing. I would describe the outcome as a miniature ballet with characters, scenes, dramatic developments et al ever present and evolving. In performance the work is played without a break, though as an addition, between sections two and three, there is placed an intermezzo featuring cadenzas for the lower brass sections. The three parts are subtitled (for clarity) thus:
1. Lust for Revenge — highly rhythmically charged and with an ensemble approach to the writing.
2. Laments — the lyrical centre where all the key solos occur. The language exploits the more poetic properties of the ‘chord’, dissonance as such provided by chromatic appoggiaturas.
3. Dance to Death — return to rhythm as the main driving force requiring much attention to detail so as not to ‘spend’ the finale too soon.
The proportions of the work are crucial to the overall effect so balancing and blending this is the challenge to conductors. I have attempted to write a piece that can be ‘looked into’ by all concerned, without rigid restrictions. Therefore, I have declined the use of indicated metronome marks at any point suggesting speed with text only. The nature of the various sections should ‘suggest’ suitable tempi. Things are, to an extent, and in the spirit of the commissioning competition, somewhat ‘open’!
Martin Ellerby, June 2012
Performance notes: I: Percussion 1 &2 have various groups of instruments to be played in close proximity and should be positioned from the outset with this in mind. They will need to play, often, with the same sticks and this is intentional unless otherwise stated. The Bass Drum will need to be placed on its side and the use of hard (SD) sticks on both the BD and the Tam-tam is a key part of the sound world of this work.
2: The Timpani part in sections one and three should employ ‘bright’ rhythmic sticks. A more ‘warm’ approach is encouraged in the second section.
3: The Cadenza section starting at [CC] should be self explanatory and a degree of experimentation is permissible. The tempo should not be too ‘relaxed’ and emerge out of the previous part ‘naturally’. However the texture that is initially set up should not attract too much attention to itself so as to enable the lower brass solos to emerge with clarity. The commencement of the cadenza section has three cues each bringing in the groups employed. In the score these are graphically notated and their positioning should indicate these entries. The instrumental parts have been cued with the Euphonium cadenza-duo so as to assist, securely, the lead into section three at which point the conductor should be firmly back in the process.
4: In both sections one and three there are what I might describe as ‘swell’ articulations first heard in the basses one bar before [A]. Again, these should be self explanatory but an appropriate sense of style is to be encouraged. An eye (and an ear) on the dramatic may pay dividends...
5: The use of rubato in section two is essential to a successful interpretation of this central contrasting component and requires taste and refinement not self indulgence.
6: The penultimate bar of section three, marked tacet, is part of the compositional process and the 3/8 time signature is most certainly intended.
7: What I have given a lot of detail to are dynamics and articulation and these should be adhered to wherever possible.
8: Finally, (in a contest context) adjudicators of this piece should familiarise themselves with my performance notes and are requested to understand that there is a certain ‘licence’, sanctioned by the composer, in the delivery and interpretation of this work. A musically persuasive outcome is a first preference...
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Jacob De Haan
Elegy I ‘Jealousy’ was comissioned as the second section test piece for the 2005 Dutch Brass Band Championships.
Jealousy can trigger various emotions, ranging from disappointment, grief, or regret, to madness and anger. All these emotions have been incorporated into this major concert work.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Jacob Haan
Grade 5.0
Elegy I ‘Jealousy’ has been named after John Donne’s poem of the same name. This English poet (1572-1631) wrote an entire series of elegies, each with its own theme. Jealousy can trigger various emotions, ranging from disappointment, grief, or regret, to madness and anger. All these emotions have been incorporated into this composition. Jacob de Haan was inspired by three different works of art: a poem (the aforementioned poem by John Donne), a painting by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (Jealousy in the Garden) and an old French chanson about jealousy (Je ne l’ose dire) by the sixteenth-century French composer Pierre Certon. The music refers repeatedly to this chanson - sometimes through key notes from the melody that serve as the starting point for new, isolated themes and sometimes through quotations of the original version
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Martin Ellerby
Click on "MORE DETAILS" to view the Solo Cornet part.
Composers Programme Note :
Elgar Variations was commissioned by the British Federation of Brass Bands for the European Brass Band Contest held at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK in May 2007. The year 2007 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the British composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857- 1934) and as such I thought it an appropriate moment to write something in tribute to this event.
There are quite a few enigmas about this piece and they are all intentional! First and foremost is that the variations are not constructed on any of Elgar’s actual themes. Rather I have written a sequence of contrasting sections (all played without a break) on the essence and character of his musical style. I have also written this work with bands, the soloists within, conductors and, not least, their audience firmly in mind.
The language is essentially tonal and the test musical rather than overtly technical. There are no tempo indications other than suggested metronome marks. I have deliberately kept things to a minimum as the true test here is to find the style and interpret that aspect over the whole structure. Whereas the faster sections are more or less self explanatory the slower parts require deliberate rubato and much feeling. This is for the conductors to discover and I encourage them to do so. Adjudicators should be fully aware that I sanction this aspect but it requires an insight and understanding to successfully execute so ‘any old thing’ will not suffice! Please be aware of, and interpret, the two commas in bar 310 as brief pauses in the musical lines. In fact this ‘variation’ commencing at rehearsal letter P is the emotional core of the piece and requires a passionate but not saccharine approach to pacing and sensuality.
The cadenza type material is built into the process rather than being a separate sequence of entities. There are many allusions to the music of Elgar here without recourse to blatant pastiche — if it is thought of as a series of songs and dances this may help.
The final comment is the dedication, after Elgar’s own but subtly adjusted: to my friend pictured within — never to be revealed — now there’s an enigma !
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Philip Sparke
Set as the First Section Test Piece for the 2019 National Finals of the British Brass Band Championships.
In stock and immediately available for next day delivery.
Commissioned by the Festival of Bands, Brisbane 1988, for the Bicentennial World Brass Band Championship held there on 29th July, ENDEAVOUR takes its title from the name of the ship in which Captain James Cook circumnavigated the world and attempts to depict in music some aspects of the history of the great continent which he discovered.
THE UNKNOWN CONTINENT tells the story of the many fruitless voyages undertaken to find the mysterious ‘Terra Australis’ and conjures up something of the awe and excitement its discovery engendered. Early struggles and hardships of the first settlers are described in THE NEW CHALLENGE but the true story of Australia over the last 200 years is one of success and CELEBRATION ends the piece in triumph.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Robert Simpson
Set as the Championship Section Test Piece for the 2014 Butlins Mineworkers Contest.
Symphonic study for Brass Band, written for the 1971 Brass Band Championships in the Royal Albert Hall London - 9th. October 1971. Championship Section.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: George Lloyd
duration 17.00
Set as the Championship Section testpiece for the 2010 British Brass Band Championships Regional events.
English Heritage was first heard in the pleasant surroundings of Hampstead Heath as part of a Kenwood Lakeside concert given on 2nd July 1988. It was commissioned for English Heritage by Michael Webber, the organiser of Kenwood Concerts for English Heritage and subsequently chosen as the Championship Section test-piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 1990. The sense of historic significance inherent in ensuring the preservation of England's fine buildings of the past drew from the composer music which seems to capture the essence of Olde England. This is a musical view of England's heritage concerned not only with pageantry and ceremonial but also catching some of the humour inherent in the English character as well as those quiet reflective moments which have surely fashioned England's past and influenced its present.
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