This is a new category created in January 2019 to celebrate the music of Howard Snell - both his original compositions and his arrangements.
Title are being added daily - January 2nd. 2019
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), Howard Snell Music Composer: Howard Snell
Set as the Championship Section Test Piece for the 2017 National Finals of the British Brass Band Championships.
GALLERY for Brass Band by HOWARD SNELL
The title ‘GALLERY’ refers to six pictures, four of them by Scottish artists. Each picture has a movement, in addition to which there is a very short introduction. They are all linked, though there are short gaps between each movement, the lengths of which are at the conductor's discretion.
Duration: Gallery complete is 20 to 20 minutes 30 seconds long. It can be played without Movement 4, The March Back to Camp, in which case the duration would be 15 to 16 minutes.
The first part of each title given below is the composer's, the second part is of the picture's actual title with its painter:
1: Entrance No picture - the visitor approaches the Gallery
2: Street Market The Barras by Paul Cox
3: The Skater's Waltz The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch by Henry Raeburn
4: The March Back to Camp Gassed by John Singer Sargent
51 Love Story Old Couple by Caitriona Campbell
6: Cut-Outs Jazz, text and illustrations by Henri Matisse
7: Landscapes Two Views from Ben Lomond (looking South~West and looking North-West) by John Knox
Categories: LIGHT CONCERT MUSIC, Howard Snell Music Composer: Dimitri Shostakovich Arranger: Howard Snell
Great encore - Duration 1.46
Click on MORE DETAILS to listen to an audio extract or view a sample of this work.
Another item of film music from the pen of Shostakovitch. Constructed from the simplest musical materials, it amuses and enthuses in equal measure !
If you enjoyed listening to this extract and want to hear the full recording, you can buy the CD on this website in the CD Section. The CD is "PATRONS CHOICE II" Fodens Band conducted by Michael Fowles.
Categories: LIGHT CONCERT MUSIC, Howard Snell Music Composer: Claude Debussy Arranger: Howard Snell
Demanding arr. of the superbly humorous piece.
The last movement of Debussy's Children's Corner Suite, but only for the most gifted children to play, it evokes the innocent fun of childhood in the past. The Cakewalk was a popular dance with a complicated history, which became a vogue dance in the Parisian music halls of the time. Debussy composed more than a handful of these dances for concert performance.
Categories: LIGHT CONCERT MUSIC, Howard Snell Music Arranger: Howard Snell
Please click on "MORE DETAILS" to view the Solo Cornet part.
Sarasate's famous Violin showpiece, a selection of gypsy songs and tunes, has been unsurprisingly widely adapted. Successively emotional, even tearful, then wildly energetic and spirited, what more could the extravert soloist ask ?
Categories: Solos, Howard Snell Music Composer: Jeno Hubay Arranger: Howard Snell
One of the very best of the thousands of 'czardas' imitations turned out over the last 150 years. Every possible chance to show off is offered by the composer, himself a virtuoso violinist.
Click on MORE DETAILS to view an image of the Solo Cornet Part.
Categories: LIGHT CONCERT MUSIC, Howard Snell Music Composer: Hector Berlioz Material: Howard Snell
Included at the last minute in a performance of Faust conducted by the composer in Budapest, The Hungarian March caused a sensation in the politically charged atmosphere of the Hungary of the time. It was encored time and time again. The clever build-up to a stunning climax shows the professional composer scoring a bull's-eye. In fact the opera has nothing whatsoever to do with Hungary : Berlioz' placing the scene 'on a plain in Hungary' was the merest cover up for trying to be sure of a triumph in his concert-tour in that country. Success on the cheap ! In the right circumstances artistic integrity is (a little) negotiable.
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), Howard Snell Music Composer / arranger: Howard Snell
for Speaker and two Brass Bands - one Championship and one good youth section band required. Seven movements. 1. Fanfare 2. Toccata : Contest Day 3. Pastorale 4. Music for a Silent Film 5. Scherzo 6. Dream - Nocturne 7. Odyssey
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), Howard Snell Music Composer / arranger: Howard Snell
Set as the Second Section Testpiece for the 2006 Regionals. Duration 16.27
See the notes of the full original version for details of the movements of this Suite. This work was set as a Second Section test piece in the UK Area contests, in a cut version, which is NOT sanctioned for concert performance. The choice was rather advanced for that Section: it would truly be a big test for a 1st section contest and could be fairly used in the Championship.
Click on "MORE DETAILS" to both view the Solo Cornet part and listen to the THREE audio extracts provided.
If you enjoyed listening to this extract, you can buy the full recording of this work on the CD section of our site. If you want to perform this work with your band, you can of course purchase the score and parts here right now, by clicking on "BUY NOW".
The recording is REGIONALS 2006 , - CD is DOY CD206
This work was commissioned by Richard Evans for the JJB Leyland Band, to be performed during the year 2000. It was originally scored to include a second Band, in order to enable its use with other sometimes technically lesser Bands. The original work is in seven movements, but for this Suite I have chosen three, and re-scored them for a single Band. As Richard Evans specified that the work should mirror aspects of the history of banding, I chose a variety of representative subjects, to be treated in differing styles, to be demanding and enjoyable to play on the one hand, but to be immediately accessible to a banding audience on the other.
1. SCHERZO : The CRYSTAL PALACE Gathering for the National Championships in the Crystal Palace in London was not only a great day out for bandsmen, their families and supporters, but brought the astonishing skills of these mostly amateur musicians to the notice of Britain’s finest establishment musicians. I see the Bands and their followers descending on London in trains and charabancs, then displaying their virtuoso abilities in this most astonishing of buildings.
2. DREAM-NOCTURNE. As if in a trance, a single unending musical line passes around the ensemble to celebrate those players who possessed, and still possess, the beauty of sound and expressive phrasing to enthrall the listener.
3. ODYSSEY. The way forward now beckons. The music passes through conflict, struggle and turmoil on its way to release, resolution and finally to triumph. Banding’s greatest strength is that it allows everyone, regardless of station or status, to exercise the arts and crafts of music and to enjoy epic moments along the way.
Howard Snell May 2005 N.B. September 2005. For the 2006 Regional Contests of the Besson National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, the Music Panel has asked 1. that the vibraphone part be totally omitted. For the first and third movements this is simply a matter of leaving out the relevant passages: the part is marked. For the second movement I have produced an alternative Glockenspiel part to be played instead of the original for Vibraphone. 2. The Music Panel has also asked for a cut to be made in the second movement as follows : play up to one bar before letter F, Then cut to one bar before J. There is no problem with the join, in spite of the different scorings of the two otherwise similar passages. The dynamic for the Timpani entering one bar before should be mf crescendo to as in the Repiano Cornet part. This Cut is not sanctioned for concert performances. 3. The metronome marks are for guidance only.
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), Howard Snell Music Composer: Howard Snell
This work was commissioned by Richard Evans for the JJB Leyland Band, to be performed during the year 2000. The requirement was for a Second Band to be included, possible of a lower standard. Richard Evans’ concept envisaged a strong educational element.
Richard Evans’ request was that the work should mirror aspects of the history of banding while also looking forward.
1. FANFARE. In this movement the work is introduced.
2. TOCCATA: CONTEST DAY. The gathering together of players and audience for a contest day is treated in a busy, sometimes jazzy manner.
3. PASTORALE: ‘A GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND’. Looking back to the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century and the rapid birth of brass bands and banding, this short Intermezzo invokes the popular picture postcard view of the past. Images of warfare appear briefly as a reminiscence of Britain’s continuing military domination of the world, with Trafalgar and Waterloo still echoing on the horizon.
4. MUSIC FOR A SILENT FILM: AN OLD MAN REMEMBERS PETERLOO. The reality of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’ was somewhat different. On August 19th 1819 the Stalybridge Band was playing at a political meeting in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester, later to become the site of the Free Trade Hall. The local Magistrate, sent in the cavalry. Shots were fired into the crowd, 11 people were killed and 500 injured. I present the scenes as follows
the holiday crowd in St Peter’s Field entertained by the Band
the unprovoked attack by the militia
the flight from St Peter’s Field
the funeral wake
the lament
5. SCHERZO: THE CRYSTAL PALACE. Only a few decades later brass bands were regular visitors to the greatest concert halls in the country. I see the Bands and their followers descending on London in trains and charabancs.
6. DREAM-NOCTURNE. As if in a trance, an unending musical line is passed around the ensemble to celebrate the players who possessed, and still possess, the sound and phrasing to enthrall the listener.
7. ODYSSEY. The way forward now beckons. The music passes through conflict, struggle and turmoil on its way to release, resolution and finally to triumph.
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