Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Philip Sparke
Set as the FIRST SECTION TEST PIECE for the 2015 Regional British Brass Band Championships.
Commissioned by the Dutch National Brass Band Championships for their 1984 contest, this work was appropriately selected for the 1991 European Championships held in Rotterdam. Duration 13.04
Click on the MORE DETAILS button to the right, to access the four audio extracts (mp3)or an image of the Solo Cornet part to allow you to sample this work.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Philip Wilby
Championship Section testpiece and Wilby's homage to the much loved artist, and the equal of anything by this acknowledged master of the band.
Click on MORE DETAILS to view an image (PDF) of the Solo Cornet part.
1 City Scape 2 Family Portraits 3 Peel Park The Bandstand
Duration 15.00
The composer writes: I wrote this piece when I was ‘composer in residence’ with the Britannia Band, and the pictures I’ve chosen are all on display in the Salford Art Gallery, so it’s my ‘Manchester’ piece.
The first is called City Scape and, in typical Lowry style, contrasts the fragile nature of humanity - individual figures, all different from each other - against the great, throbbing energy of the industrial landscape in which we live.
The second is a tribute to the family, though I have in mind more universal family elements, a cross-generation thing, so it’s a sentimental melody rather old fashioned, but I’m rather fond of it.
The last one is a depiction of Peel Park - a subject Lowry painted several times - The Bandstand as seen from the window of the Art Gallery itself. A huge crowd of Mancunians, or Salfordians, dances to the music of a brass band. What sort of music would it be playing? In my case something arranged from the classics. To say any more would give the game’ away. P.W. 1993
Performance notes : Percussion: Bands may find the inclusion of a Marimba impractical. In these instances the composer sanctions the use of the Xylophone played with soft sticks. Where there is a choice of the instruments but only one is possible, the Marimba should always be preferred. and the Xylophone sections played with hard sticks and taken up an octave where practical. Both options are authorised by the composer and are authentic.
Fanfare Brass and Percussion (Peel Park): There will be occasions when bands can call on additional players for these parts: in such instances these optional players should be grouped behind the band, Group A stage right, Group B centrally, Group C left, and should play only the bars indicated. The players are optional, but the notes are not! On all normal occasions for ordinary concert performances, the parts will be taken by the regular musicians seated in their normal positions.
This edition incorporates some very minor revisions the composer made in 1996.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composers: Andrew Baker, Paul McGhee, Lucy Pankhurst
Lucid Perspectives was commissioned by the Woodbridge Excelsior Brass Band for use as their own choice test piece at the 2017 Butlins Mineworkers 4th Section Championships in Skegness. Having been asked on a few occasions to write a piece for 4th section, I decided it was the perfect time to maybe write a collaborative piece that uses different compositional voices working to a common goal.
With a brief of ‘write a short two minute piece that incorporates the view from the window where you composed it’, the composers set about making a new and interesting work for brass band where the main objective was to produce a short piece of music that never ‘talks down’ to the performer and engages them in a tonal language that perhaps isn’t instantly familiar.
Written in four ‘movements’ which run continuously, Lucid Perspectives aims to bring together three unique voices in a work that reflects their styles, surroundings and inspirations.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Simon Dobson
A Suite in three movements.
1. Fanfares & Dances 2. Romance 3. Folk Song
Click on "MORE DETAILS" to view the Solo Cornet part.
This piece was commissioned for the 2003 Regional Contests of the National Championships of Great Britain, Section 4 “The Work’s title refers to the Lydian mode, a way of re-organising certain parts of major or minor scales to produce different sounding rows of notes. The Lydian Mode has a raised or augmented 4’, so the mode (when transposed into C) would have an F# in the place of an F natural. I believe that music written using this mode had a very open, free, warm and sonorous sound. This can be heard in the recurring four note bass motif (e.g. C, G, F#, A), in the accompaniment of the second movement and in the various orchestrations of the folk song in the final movement. Each of the movements should be imagined as a picture, with it’s own stories and colours. The movements are each inspired by or are reminiscent of pictures, sounds, places or people I have seen or known.
The first movement should be full of vigour and fire, with a very buoyant and energetic approach. The second movement should be almost the opposite with a relaxed, expressive and an almost lullaby-like quality. The final movement should, be above all fun, full of bouncing rhythms and have a dance like snappy, pointy sound.” Simon Dobson, April 2002.
Percussion needed: Snare drum, bass drum, suspended cymbal, clash cymbals, Bodhrán (Irish folk drum)/ dampened floor torn, three wood/temple blocks (high, medium, low), Glockenspiel, chimes, triangle, 2 x Timpani.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Simon Dobson
A Suite in three movements.
1. Fanfares & Dances 2. Romance 3. Folk Song
Click on "MORE DETAILS" to view the Solo Cornet part.
This piece was commissioned for the 2003 Regional Contests of the National Championships of Great Britain, Section 4 “The Work’s title refers to the Lydian mode, a way of re-organising certain parts of major or minor scales to produce different sounding rows of notes. The Lydian Mode has a raised or augmented 4’, so the mode (when transposed into C) would have an F# in the place of an F natural. I believe that music written using this mode had a very open, free, warm and sonorous sound. This can be heard in the recurring four note bass motif (e.g. C, G, F#, A), in the accompaniment of the second movement and in the various orchestrations of the folk song in the final movement. Each of the movements should be imagined as a picture, with it’s own stories and colours. The movements are each inspired by or are reminiscent of pictures, sounds, places or people I have seen or known.
The first movement should be full of vigour and fire, with a very buoyant and energetic approach. The second movement should be almost the opposite with a relaxed, expressive and an almost lullaby-like quality. The final movement should, be above all fun, full of bouncing rhythms and have a dance like snappy, pointy sound.” Simon Dobson, April 2002.
Percussion needed: Snare drum, bass drum, suspended cymbal, clash cymbals, Bodhrán (Irish folk drum)/ dampened floor torn, three wood/temple blocks (high, medium, low), Glockenspiel, chimes, triangle, 2 x Timpani.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Simon Dobson
Lyonesse was commissioned by the Brass Band Heritage Trust as the test piece for the Finals of the National Youth Brass Band Championships held in Manchester in April 2005. This atmospheric music, ideal as a test piece for First and Second section bands, takes its inspiration from the lost kingdom of Lyonesse, the mythical spur of land linking Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, and its associated legend of Tristan and Isolde.
Brass Band Grade 5: 1st Section
Duration: 13 minutes
Grade equivalents for Brass Band test-pieces where there is considerable overlap at the higher levels, depending on the level of competition (local, regional or national):
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Peter Meechan
Commissioned by the Scottish Brass Band Association for the 2007 Scottish Open Championship, Macbeth takes its' inspiration from the Shakespeare play of the same name. Character portraits (Of the three witches as well as Macbeth himself), abstractions (The lament), and scenes (Macbeth's final battle with Macduff) make up the nine sections of the piece.
1. WITCHES
The prophecies of the three witches are an integral part of the play, and in this opening section, these mysterious characters are represented by three different sections of music that introduces the listener to the musical material of the piece.
2. DAGGER
Macbeth's "Is this a dagger I see before thee" speech, where an imaginary dagger leads him to contemplate the pending murder, builds in intensity before the bell tolls at its' conclusion - a sign from Lady Macbeth that Duncan is now alone.
3. GENERAL MACBETH
A character portrait of Macbeth - a fearless General who has led his armies to defeat foes from all over Europe. His ambition and flair that make him such a great General are also the characteristics that lead to his eventual downfall.
4. CONTEMPLATIONS of LADY MCBETH
Alone and mad, Lady Macbeth ponders all that has gone, before taking her own life.
5. LAMENT
Although the play tells of Macbeth not feeling the pain of his wife's death, this lament ponders not only her death, but the tale as a whole.
6. TOMORROW, TOMORROW and TOMORROW
It is in this final soliloquy that we see the ultimate tragedy of Macbeth - the realisation that his life is ultimately worthless.
7. A SPELL STILL CAST
This acts as an prologue to section eight, restating the original "witches" music, before heading into Macbeth's final battle.
8. FINAL BATTLE
Macbeth's final battle, where he locks swords with Macduff.
9. NOT OF WOMAN BORN
Macbeth's realisation that the witches have misled him comes all too late, as Macduff beheads Macbeth, fulfilling the last prophecy.
The city of Machu Picchu, the architectural masterpiece of the Inca civilization, remains today still an enigma for archaeologists. Dominating the valley of Urubamba, at almost 2,500 meters above sea level, the majestic city appears in the middle of the Andean mountain range, in an extreme environment. Long kept secret, Machu Picchu seems to have escaped the Spanish colonization and its ruins were discovered only very late, giving free rein to a rich and fantastic imagination. The Inca people, devoting themselves to the sun, built this extraordinary site in perfect symbiosis with the mountain. This "old peak", according to an ancient Inca translation, has still not revealed all its secrets and continues to give rise to much inspiration.
The piece "Machu Picchu" offers a discovery of the celestial city through the Inca rites. At first, from the bottom of the valley far away, the site appears dizzying in the middle of the clouds. Being discovered gradually all along a gruelling ascent, the citadel gives way to monumental structures, witnesses of the splendours and grandeur of the Inca civilization: Temple of the Sun, Royal Palace, Royal Tomb, Ceremonial Baths, so many places where the last Inca emperor would have taken refuge. The traveller then helplessly attends the sacrifice of the Virgins of the Sun on the immense main square, in honour of the supreme deity, as if to ward off the signs of the nearing end that had been announced. The procession gradually moves away towards the Intihuatana, the stone of the Sun, to plead their deity one last time. The piece ends with a 360° view of an exceptional panorama combining the peaks of the Andes with the immensity of the Amazon. The musical material is developed around two motifs exposed by the cornets in the introduction; these patterns will come back throughout the piece and translate at their highpoint as the words M.A.C.H.U - P.I.C.C.H.U. These two motifs highlight two intervals, the ascending third and the descending second, which are at the origin of the different thematic elements of the piece.
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