Results
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£100.00Handel in the Band (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Handel in the Band is a virtuoso set of symphonic variations on one of Handel's best known keyboard dances, the Sarabande from his Suite in D minor, HWV 437, based on the Spanish traditional dance La Folia. Kenneth Downie's work was commissioned by Brass Band Treize Etoiles, for performance at the 2013 Swiss National Brass Band Championships, where it was conducted by James Gourlay. The title is a reference to Percy Grainger's popular Handel in the Strand, and is indicative of the witty and theatrical nature of the music, which is more playful than conventional competition pieces and as such offers different challenges to brass bands as well as being thoroughly entertaining for audiences.Kenneth Downie is one of the most respected and experienced brass band composers. His music has been widely performed and published throughout the brass band world since the 1960s.Handel in the Band was selected as the set work for the Championship Section final of the 2018 National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 6th October 2018.Duration: 15.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£89.99Torsion (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Torsion was commissioned by the Leyland Band and first performed on 23 January 2010 at the Royal Northern College of Music Festival of Brass, Manchester, by Leyland Band conducted by Jason Katsikaris. This colourful and dynamic work is the most personal and ambitious that Simon Dobson composed during his residency with the Lancashire brass band. The dictionary defines torsion as the state of being twisted and the composer interprets this as the imagined dis-torsions and con-torsions of Time, Light and Sound in three contrasting movements. Simon Dobson fuses the traditional brass band sound with drive and energy of pop and funk jazz with optional digitally distorted 'echoes' providing added aural confusion at the points of climax. Although composed as a substantial concert work, Torsion would also make a challenging test-piece for contesting brass bands in the elite divisions. Suitable for Championship Section Bands. Duration: 15.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£95.00Variations on a Theme of Michael Tippett (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
A Centenary Tribute by Michael Ball, Edward Gregson, Elgar Howarth, Bramwell Tovey and Philip WilbyThis unique 'pice d'occasion' arose out of a telephone conversation in 2004 with Alan Wycherley, who was the soprano cornet player of the Foden's Richardson Band at the time. He indicated that the band would like to include an original birthday tribute for Edward Gregson (60) and Elgar Howarth (70) in its concert at the 2005 RNCM Festival of Brass in Manchester. I have been Artistic Director of Manchester's Festival of Brass since it was established in 1990 as a BBC Radio 3 series, As the centenary of the birth of Sir Michael Tippett fell on 5 January 2005, I devised this collective work as a way of embracing all three anniversaries in a novel way.The idea of joint compositions is not a new one in the classical music world. In the 1860s, Verdi was joined by a number of his contemporaries in a Requiem Mass for Rossini. In this country there have been a number of orchestral examples over the past fifty years, but never before for the brass band. Although Tippett composed only one work for brass band, Festal Brass with Blues, his orchestral works and operas are full of idiomatic brass writing. The theme I chose for this celebration is one of Tippet's most memorable miniatures featuring wind and brass. In the opera Midsummer Marriage it marks the entry of the Ancients. It is also included in the orchestral Suite in D (1948), for the Birthday of Prince Charles.I invited five of the leading contemporary voices in brass band music to add their own creative perspectives to the little Tippett theme, with it's characteristic rhythms, embellishments and modality - the Lydian mode. Each contribution was designed to fit into a tonal and formal template to give the whole work a flow and continuity. In Danse des Amis, Bramwell Tovey has composed a jazzy, humorous variation. Inspiration came from Tippett's love of jazz and, more personally, from the characteristically syncopated gait of the distinguished music critic John Amis, who Tovey once observed leaving a performance of Tippett's opera King Priam before the end. Incidentally, that performance was conducted by Elgar Howarth.We hear Edward Gregson in lyrical mode. His Midsummer Song is redolent of the sound world of Tippett's opera A Midsummer Marriage and it ends with a brief reference to a favourite of Gregson's, Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra. Michael Ball provides a brief moment of light, airy activity bringing to mind perhaps Tippett's love of Shakespearian fantasy, especially The Tempest. Elgar Howarth juxtaposes a slowed down version of the processional theme with distant recollections of fanfares from King Priam. Philip Wilby has rounded the tribute off with a spectacular fugue. During its inexorable progress Wilby ingeniously introduces the two other birthday references - the three-note musical signature that Elgar Howarth includes in much of his music and the characteristic theme which begins Edward Gregson's substantial work for brass an organ The Trumpets of the Angels. An elaborated reprise of Tippett's little theme is followed by a dynamic coda.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 13.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£40.00The Unfortunate Traveller (Brass Band - Score only)
Imogen Holst (1907-1984) submitted The Unfortunate Traveller (1929) as her final work as a student portfolio at the Royal College of Music, where her composition teacher was Gordon Jacob. The title was taken from Thomas Nashe's famous 1594 picaresque novel of the same title. The Suite was first performed on 12 February 1933 at her Majesty's Theatre, Carlisle, by the St. Stephen's Band, with the composer conducting. Te concert was given in memory of Holst's uncle, Dr. H.A. Lediard. Holst had been impressed with the band's performance of his A Moorside Suite at the 1928 National Brass Band Championships (The Crystal Palace, South London) and was keen to work with them. Writing in Imogen Holst, a life in music, Christopher Grogan indicates that it was Gustav Holst's suggestion to include his daughter's work in the programme, quoting Imogen Holst's remarks made in interview to The Daily Mail as follows: "....it is the first time, so far as I know, that a woman has conducted a brass band at a public concert....It has been a delight to rehearse the St. Stephen's Band. It was their performance at the Crystal Palace Festival that inspired me to write this Suite, which I have dedicated to them."Imogen Holst accompanied her father to the Crystal Palace in 1928 to hear the performances of A Moorside Suite, and was so excited by the played and, audibly, by her father's music that she decided to write a brass band piece for her final examination. Te result was The Unfortunate Traveller (1929). However, it was not possible for her to present a brass band work for examination. She arranged it for string orchestra so that it could be played before she left the RCM in July 1930. Following the premiere of the original in 1933, the manuscripts did not resurface until 1969 Imogen found them among her late mother's effects. Although she requested score and parts be destroyed, they ended up in the possession of Manchester composer John Golland, who marked up the score presumably with the intention of creating a new performing edition. The original scoring reveals a lack of experience with what can be a tricky medium.With the agreement of the Holst Foundation, a revised edition, with additional percussion, was prepared in 2011 since when the work has been fortunate to travel round the world as a concert and contest piece. The original includes drums in the March only. The title was taken from Tomas Nashe's famous 1594 picaresque novel of the same title. Several Morris Dance tunes are introduced during the course of the four short movements, including Bonnie Green Garters, Shepherd's Hey, The Rose and The Wind Blaws Cauld. Quirky twists and turns of harmony and spirited rhythms that remind us how much Imogen Holst loved tradition English dance music.In September 2025, I made a performing edition of the composer's arrangement for string orchestra. The manuscript lacks the final movement, which I arranged in a similar style, ie. without extending the upper ranges. Making this edition raised some issues regarding the accuracy of my band version and some of the solutions I used to smooth out the voicing. I have used the composer's second thoughts to refine my performing edition and to correct a textual errors.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 10.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£80.00Concertino for Brass Band (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
This music, in its original four movement form called 'Concerto for Brass Band', was commissioned by Brass Band Treize Etoiles from Switzerland as an own-choice test piece. For its use as the test piece for the Championship Section of the 2008 National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain it was specially published without the second movement Scherzo (available separately) as 'Concertino for Brass Band'.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£95.00Tenor Horn Concerto 'Three Gods' (Tenor Horn Solo with Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Edward Gregson's Tenor Horn Concerto (Three Gods) was commissioned by the Belgian tenor horn soloist Tim de Maeseneer for a recording of commissioned works he made in 2024 with his own band, Brass Band Willebroek.The subtitle of 'Three Gods' refers to three mythological Greek Gods: Zeus, Hermes and Apollo. The idea for this came from Gregson's Viola Concerto, which he composed in 2023 and which was similarly subtitled 'Three Goddesses'. Indeed, the first movement of the horn concerto shares some common material with the viola concerto, although the other movements are newly composed.The concerto exploits the noble character of the horn, but the writing is also virtuosic in character as well as lyrical and melodic, demanding an extended playing range of nearly four octaves with a variety of colouration in its sonorities. The unifying motif of the whole concerto is the interval of a rising 5th, heard at the outset. The opening also has some other surprises (both seen and heard).The musical ideas, cast in three separate movements, take their starting point from the characters of the Three Gods in the title:Zeus, ruled as King of the Gods on Mount Olympus, and was the God of Thunder and Lightning and of War. His music is often threatening and violent, but also has a more tender side as portrayed in the lyrical second subject. However, the dominant mood is one of foreboding.Hermes was the great messenger to the Gods who could travel between realms on his winged sandals. Thus, his music is fast, fleet of foot, and mercurial - a dashing scherzo, but with lyrical and expressive moments.Apollo, the God of Music and Dance (and the Sun), symbolises virtue and beauty. This final movement, 'Hymn to Apollo', is mainly slow and hymn-like and cast in a continuous stream of melody passed between soloist and band. Brief fanfares herald a triumphant march, before the music returns to its quiet opening, gradually rising to a triumphant climax with glittering melodic percussion leading the way. The music ends in a blaze of glory!Duration: 17.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£64.95Adam Zero, Suite from (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Selected as the Section 2 test piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 2025Following his ballet Checkmate, Bliss composed another score for the, by then, Sadler's Wells Ballet, Miracle in the Gorbals, which was choreographed by Robert Helpmann, to a scenario by Michael Benthall. Premired in 1944, the ballet made a considerable impact and was a box-office success. It was followed in turn by a further collaboration with Helpmann and Benthall, Adam Zero. This would serve Helpmann, in the eponymous role, as a vehicle in two respects: demonstrating his gifts as a dancer-actor and as a choreographer. First performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 8 April 1946, Adam Zero was conducted by Constant Lambert, the work's dedicatee. Bliss considered it 'his most varied and exciting ballet score'. Benthall provided a synopsis for the programme:There is a philosophy that life moves in an endless series of timeless cycles. As Nature passes through Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, so man is born, makes a success in his own particular sphere, loses his position to a younger generation, sees his world crumble before his eyes and only finds peace in death. This age-old story is told in terms of a Company creating a ballet and calling on the resources of the theatre to do so. Lighting, stage mechanism, dance conventions, musical forms and costumes and scenery of all periods are used to symbolize the world of 'Adam Zero'.Apart from Adam, as the Principal Dancer, other main roles included the Stage Director (representing Omnipotence), and Adam's Fates (Designer, Wardrobe Mistress, and Dresser). 'The Woman in this allegory', wrote Bliss, 'under the symbol of the Choreographer, was both the creator and destroyer of Adam: his first love, his wife, his mistress, and finally the figure of beneficent Death.' When the curtain rose, the 'audience saw the Covent Garden stage right back to the wall, completely empty except for the protagonists, 'the Company poised, still and expectant, as they await the birth of... Adam Zero.'Unfortunately, soon after the premire, Helpmann injured himself and had to withdraw from the remaining performances. Despite generally positive reviews, the ballet did not capture the imagination of audiences and, to Bliss's considerable disappointment, was not revived. Seventy years would elapse before its first major return to the stage, in 2016, performed by the ballet company of Stadttheater Bremerhaven with choreography by Sergei Vanaev.Bliss extracted a concert suite from the ballet, conducting its first performance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on 28 October 1948. For his own suite, arranged for brass band in 2023, Dr Robert Childs chose three dances linked to the seasons, book-ending them with the ebullient 'Fanfare Overture' and 'Fanfare Coda'. After Adam has grown to manhood, his Fates clothe him in a costume synonymous with confident youth, appropriate for the virile, ardent 'Dance of Spring'. In the 'Approach of Autumn', Adam, now wearing a sombre costume, has grown older: his Fates have streaked grey in his hair and put lines on his face. But they had earlier raised Adam to the zenith of his power, and the 'Dance of Summer' depicts him in the prime of life, in music of sweeping grandeur. The 'Fanfare Coda' signals that the next cycle of life is about to begin.Duration: 10.30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£45.00Two Herefordshire Carols (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
The two traditional tunes that comprise this straightforward setting were sung to Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) by Mrs. Esther Smith of Dilwyn, near Hereford, during one of the great composer's folk song collecting tours of England in the early years of the twentieth century. They were included in Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire, edited by E.M. Leather and Vaughan Williams. The words to which Mrs. Smith sung the first tune were probably drawn from eighteenth century evangelical sources. The editors replaced these with six of the 16 verses of a traditional seventeenth century carol text, Joseph and Mary.The second melody, which appears as the centre piece of this arrangement, was sung to a carol that tells of a farmer who ploughed on Christmas Day. It is in fact a translation of a German traditional carol Gelobet seist du Jesu Christ that was published in Goodly Psalmes and Spiritualle Songes (1546) translated by Miles Coverdale. Vaughan Williams used the title Coverdale's Carol.The brass band settings follow the settings made by Vaughan Williams in 1920 for the Oxford Book of Carols. Since his simple harmonic approach is similar in both settings, three verses of his haunting version of Coverdale's Carol have been folded inside four verses of the slightly more animated treatment of Joseph and Mary. The harmonisations of Vaughan Williams have been given some brass band colour, with some verses taken by soloists from the ensemble. The accompaniment figuration that embellishes the second verse of Joseph and Mary has been used to open and close this arrangement and to bind the verses together.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£125.00The World Rejoicing (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
The World Rejoicing was commissioned by the National Brass Band Associations of Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the British Open, as the test piece for their competitions in 2020/21. Although the work was completed in 2019, the pandemic of 2020 meant that these competitions were postponed until 2021/22. The premiere took place in September 2021 at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK.In searching for a common link between the brass band traditions of the various European countries that commissioned this work, I considered the fact that hymns have always played an important role in the relationship that brass bands have with their particular communities; and thus I turned to a well- known Lutheran chorale, Nun danket alle Gott (Now thank we all our God), written around 1636 by Martin Rinkart, with the melody attributed to Johann Cruger. A number of composers have incorporated this chorale into their music, most famously J.S. Bach in his Cantatas no. 79 and 192, and Mendelssohn in the Lobsegang movement of his 2nd Symphony (the harmonisation of which is usually used when this hymn is sung).It seemed fitting therefore for me to return to a compositional form I have used many times before (Variations) and to write a work based on this hymn. I have used it in a similar way to that which I employed in my Variations on Laudate Dominum of 1976 - that is, rather than writing a set of variations using elaborations of the complete tune, I have taken various phrases from the chorale and used them within the context of other musical material, applying an overall symphonic process of continuous variation and development. The structure, or sub-divisions of the work, which is through composed and plays without a break, is as follows:Prelude, Capriccio, La Danza 1, Processional, La Danza 2, Arias and Duets, Fuga Burlesca, Chorale, and Postlude.The work, which is around 16 minutes in length, is also partly autobiographical - in the manner say of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben - in that I have incorporated into the score brief quotations from many of my other major works for brass band. In that respect, The World Rejoicing sums up a particular facet of my life as a composer, and reflects the admiration I have always had for what is surely one of the great amateur music-making traditions in the world.Duration: 16.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£50.00Solemn Procession (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) was a famous conductor and composer when he wrote Feierlicher Einzug der Ritter des Johanniter-Ordens (Solemn Entrance of the Knights of the Order of Saint John) in 1909. One of only a handful of his works written exclusively for winds, Strauss composed Feierlicher Einzug for the investiture ceremonies of the Order of St. John, a Christian military order that was founded in Jerusalem in 1023 to care for poor, sick, or injured pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land.Strauss scored Feierlicher Einzug (TrV 224) for a large ensemble of fifteen trumpets, four horns, four trombones, two tubas and timpani. He saw enough potential in its stately character and majestic conclusion to produce a version for symphony orchestra with organ and it has been arranged for a variety of brass ensembles with or without organ since then.This version for British style brass band was adapted from the original in 1990 by Paul Hindmarsh for the exclusive use of Besses o' th' Barn Band, of which he was then the musical director. Now that the music of Richard Strauss published in his lifetime is in the public domain, Solemn Procession, as it has been rendered in English, can be enjoyed by all brass bands and their audiences.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 6.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days